SLEEP GOOD. THAT'S IT.
The new thing in the medical profession is to make sure everyone in the country KNOWS they have sleep apnea...the latest designer chronic illness.
I was sucked into going to have the "sleep test" by my specialist doctor who owns the sleep clinic.
Velly Interesting!
Now, to perform this test, you show up at 8:00, they put you in a room with 100 hickey thingies glued to your head chest and legs with a control box that weighs 10 lbs. A camera watches your every move, and someone has to stay up all night to watch you "sleep" and wake you if you know one of the hickey things off.
The next night you go back and repeat trying to sleep with a mask on that has a blower hooked to it. The Hoover vacuum Company would love to have a motor like that in one of their vacuum cleaners. To make sure no air escapes from the mask, they cinch this thing on with nylon strapping, and you look like one of those WWII fighter pilots, or you're 50 feet from the top of Everest. The instruction are plain...you must sleep, you are getting sleeeepy. BS!
I didn't do anything about the results which said I stopped breathing 27 time and hour, and should sign my living will over to them, as I would never see the light of another day. I thought about it and decided that sleep was more important than buying a machine I would never use except to blow out the crap from under the seat of my '54 Chevy truck. Medicare didn't need to buy me a machine.
Then someone said...I have a coup;e of those machines in my basement, want one? According to the sleep test people my "pressure" was 9 psi a minute, or some such...I decided to take it apart and see how it could be adjusted...no luck...I thought about trying to turn it around so it would suck, and really have a vacuum cleaner. Just think, get a bunch of these unused machines at the flea market, reverse em, and sell em on Craig's List for $20.00.
Janice and I went to Wal Mart...we only go into one of those places when we are going camping in some remote part of WV...get groceries batteries etc. I met a friend who was looking for a jumper box, one of those things that you use to jump start you car . I told him I had one and he could use it if he needed it. He thanked me and said he needed one to run his sleep apnea machine so he wouldn't die... camping. Hell, a bear could have eaten him! he'd be dead, and the bear would die trying to pass the machine! RE damn diculous.
Anyway, my doctor and I have come to some accord. I figure GP's are the first line of defense. You go, you speak, they listen and recommend you to a specialist. You have to be referred to a specialist it seems...keeps the money train moving.
I don't know that I would want to be a GP...prescribing pill and keep track of people's medicines and putting them on most of it "just to be safe" seems a pretty dull way to spend one's allotted time here.
Oh, and there is ALWAYS the obligatory bleeding, at another place and another price. "The insurance pays for this one, but might not pay for this one... please acknowledge with your signature I told you all this". If you go to the specialist and he requires this test, the insurance will pay...do you want the test now"?
"Naw, think I'll go home and ride the tractor to get the bad taste out of my mouth".
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