Gearing Up
My quest for a good night’s sleep
For the past ten years, ever since I was diagnosed with sleep apnea in my late fifties, I’ve been on a quest to get a decent night’s sleep. But so far, that quest has been quixotic, frustrating, and at times, downright ridiculous.
None of my doctors suspected I had apnea. After all, I was thin, fit, and didn’t snore. But by the time I hit 55, I was also chronically tired. I tried supplements, thyroid pills, and Chinese herbs, all without success. Finally, I saw the symptoms of sleep apnea in an article on the internet: fatigue, restless sleep, and waking up at night gasping for air. (Check, check, and check!)
Once or twice a month I’d wake up gasping, my heart pounding, often just after I’d fallen asleep. I’d have a brief but intense “am I dying here?” experience and then fall back into a restless sleep, trying not to think about it. I wrote it down to nerves and my anxiety-prone genes, until the next time it happened.
After a home-sleep study, in which I was wired up like a lab rat, confirmed that I had apnea, and stopped breathing 56 times during the 7 hours I was on the monitor, I was sucked into a new world of devices, medications, and warnings about the dangers of this condition. Those dangers included a higher incidence of heart disease and heart attacks, which claimed my father, my…
