My journey into restoring my health began last October, when we discovered that my thyroid was off. I started into some counseling to help with anxiety, and I tried to slow down. I lost around 20 pounds. Things were pretty good. Working out, eating better, more secure. This fall notwithstanding, the overall prognosis has been excellent. And, as you might remember from yesterday’s post, I’m ready for phase 2, and to knock off the backsliding.
At my checkup in October, I was sure that the doc would adjust my thyroid meds, because I still feel tired often. I get enough sleep. I call it a night at 9:30 and I’m up at 5:30. Do the math. My problem, it seems, is sleep apnea, which to my way of thinking is a better diagnosis than, “you’re old now.” So, in order to both diagnose, and to get my CPAP up and running, I’ve been to/will be returning to the sleep lab.
What’s it like to have a sleep test? Well, you go to a room that looks like a hotel room with an intercom and all sorts of fun wires and monitors. When you get a sleep test, they paste a bunch of diodes into your hair, and put monitors on your heart, your rib cage, and your legs, just in case your problem isn’t with your airway. Then you take a couple of sleeping pills and fade in and out of consciousness all night.
This time around, they’ll be fitting me with a CPAP. I don’t have serious apnea, because they didn’t do the adjustment the first night I was there, but I do have it. On the scale of apnea, where a 4 is normal, I scored a 16, so we were pretty sure that’s what was going on. As women get older, our likelihood of apnea evens up with men’s. It increases 20 fold. And I have tiny little air passages in my nose, another sign.
So, this is where I’ll ring in 2015. At the sleep lab, wired for sound. And then we’ll have a CPAP, and we’ll see if we have more energy.
Hope all of you are well.
