Sleep Apnea Test

Thanks to all the contributors on the informative subject regarding sleep apnea. During a visit to my daughter late last year, she told me that I stopped breathing during my sleep. Guess this means I might be asleep apnea sufferer. So, will hit the gym starting tomorrow and hope to reduce the chances of it becoming a real problem.

Serah, I know a girl who has sleep apnea. She was a little overweight and drank a few beers almost every day. She lost 25- 30 pounds and quit drinking beer and now she doesn't have sleep apnea anymore.

Thx for the info DoubleCutter. While I dont drink beer I must admit that I tend to put on weight every winter, and this winter was especially long and baaaad. So it was work then home, period. But since my weight might become an issue when applying for jobs (and my health in general), I will hit the gym and the park....again!!

Hmmmm...this is interesting. I'm about to go to trucking school and I have sleep apnea . I went to get my cdl permit ,passed and had to get a DOT card (DOT Physical). I have a c pap machine. I had to go get machine reading for DOT card .passed physical with reading from sleep clinic. You are required to be at 70% to be compliant. Gave the school my DOT information,but realize it is up to the company I try to work for .......#fingers crossed.

I'm overweight (though I've lost nearly a hundred pounds in the past year and a half) and have never had a problem sleeping. I get plenty of sleep, wake up with tons of energy, don't nap during the day and don't snore. Had to get tested when I finished CDL school to get hired with the company that runs the school. They say I have sleep apnea and need a machine. What a crock. We had to sign a note for the machine before we could even see the thing. They say it costs $1300+ but the company will pay $600. After I got it I started checking it out online and found that it sells for less than $700. Same model and accessories.

Since obesity is now classified as a "disease" is it OK for them to discriminate based on weight? I know two longtime drivers at this company who are pretty fit but have sleep apnea. They know they have it but say they won't use a machine and the company won't even test them because they're not overweight!

I have sleep apnea. I found this out when i went through crete/shaffer trucking. They paid for the sleep study. Once it was determined i had it they got me a machine. I had to pay 50 dollars a week till it was paid off. They put me in a truck with an apu and an inverter to plug into. I also had a form for authorities letting them know i had a medical device. they can and will ask for your smart card (if so equipped) and they will make sure you are compliant dot regulations are 4 hours or more per day. If you are not compliant they will park you. So if you have it stay compliant. You will also have to show compliant when you dot physical every year. It is a pain but needs done. I use my machine daily unless i am home and the power goes out. Don't worry as long as you are at 80% the doctors will pass you. Some companies will hold higher standards. Like the above they want to see 6 hours and they scan your card once a month. If you are not compliant they will park you until you get compliant. There are some truck stops where you can do a card read. Most companies are getting the programs to do this at their terminals. I am no expert on this subject I just do what I am told so I can keep on rolling. That is what i know. I think in 2015 this will be driven hard by dot so most of the large companies are trying to get themselves up to speed so they will have everything up to par when they have to.

Terminal:

A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.

DOT:

Department Of Transportation

A department of the federal executive branch responsible for the national highways and for railroad and airline safety. It also manages Amtrak, the national railroad system, and the Coast Guard.

State and Federal DOT Officers are responsible for commercial vehicle enforcement. "The truck police" you could call them.

Sleep Apnea:

A physical disorder in which you have pauses in your breathing, or take shallow breaths, during sleep. These pauses can last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. Normal breathing will usually resume, sometimes with a loud choking sound or snort.

In obstructive sleep apnea, your airways become blocked or collapse during sleep, causing the pauses and shallow breathing.

It is a chronic condition that will require ongoing management. It affects about 18 million people in the U.S.

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

I've had sleep apnea for over ten years now. Been using a machine the whole time. I have three machines (Hmm, maybe even 4). My insurance paid for the first one, the others, I've picked up at thrift shops and yard sales!! People get the machines, can't sleep with a mask on their face blowing air all the time and get rid of them.. Cheap and I mean REALLY cheap.. I've bought two of mine that are in like new condition for $5.00.. Yep, five dollars.. Hmm, maybe I should start selling them at truck stops.. haha.

I've been doing engineering work for over 30 years and I'm really considering going to the Swift school and the whole nine yards and becoming an OTR trucker for the next 10 years or so.. I'd much rather look at the open road than a cubicle the next ten years..

So, if I have my CPAP machine with me and possibly the most recent sleep study results (I think I've taken two of them) from the place that did them, I should be G2G with the DOT doc hopefully.

MBH doesn't think I'll be able to pass the DOT physical with Type 2 Diabetes (Controlled through meds), High blood pressure (Controlled through meds), hmm, what else.. She says I'm a grumpy old ******* but, I don't think they ask anything about that..

Hey, I'm cutting and pasting what I wrote here in another thread, from a few days ago about sleep apnea , subject "Will I have to take a sleep apnea test?" I'm also adding a few extra comments to this that I hadn't made before. Those who have it are often completely unaware that they do. Usually, it's someone else, a spouse or relative, who informs them of their apparent poor sleep from watching or hearing them while they sleep. It is quite startling to witness because those who have sleep apnea (which means absence of breathing) do stop breathing for as long as 20-30 seconds, a minute, before they recover. And this process repeats itself over and over throughout the night.

"The ones that do often have it for years without being diagnosed."

-Brett Aquila

I personally know a retired physician who apparently had it for years & had no idea he had it. Certainly someone who has been through Medical School and has dedicated over 30 years to the profession would have recognized his own poor sleep patterns, right? Nope. Not at all. He thought it was merely a snoring issue. (So, if at all possible, if a medical professional has suggested it, even if you think it's a "crock," you should get tested, to be sure.) He was recently diagnosed in the past couple of months. Since using it, his life & health have improved drastically and over-the-phone, he sounds healthier overall and decades younger. Seriously. In general, he sounds far more alert and sharp now, like his "old self." There is a statistical (& direct) relationship between neck circumference & the snoring, plus apnea. The patient breathes & snores to the point where breathing stops for seconds or moments at a time largely due to the added weight they carry in their neck and/or chest. (Some women have it in the last phases of their pregnancy because their abdomens and everything are so big and heavy ...miserable trying to sleep and waking up gasping for air.) The brain then wakes the patient just far enough back into conscious- or semi-consciousness in order to start breathing again but the patient is not quite conscious enough to be aware of this event. The patient then falls back into sleep and the brain attempts to drift into REM sleep again, but after a few minutes, has to "wake up" the patient again, in order to take a sufficient breath and REM sleep is abruptly interrupted or completely prevented from happening.

With the sleep study, using electrodes on the scalp, specialists can see (and prove) where the patient has woken (unknowingly) as many as 300-600 times (not uncommon) in one night & therefore hasn't really "slept" at all. Oxygen saturation (percentage of oxygen in the blood) can drop to as low as 68% (less than 90% is considered risky or dangerous and requiring supplemental oxygen) or less where 93-100% is considered normal range, so the patient is not only sleep deprived from poor rest, he also wakes up having endured hours and hours of seriously low oxygen levels to his brain, heart muscle, vital organs, everything. All this can cause a person to fall asleep unexpectedly for unknown periods of time while driving.

The retired physician I know had done just that behind the wheel a few times, & finally "turned himself in" to his own doctor to start the study process. He no longer naps during the day nor falls asleep at the wheel. He's delighted with the results and feels wonderful. True story.

It's a serious disorder & causes a plethora of secondary health problems, including heart disease and permanent brain changes, as you can imagine, after years & years of never getting enough REM sleep. There are studies already out there, that are also drawing a link between lack of sleep and diabetes. I've heard of one that demonstrates that a person who has been lacking in a good night's rest for merely 4 nights in-a-row, already shows signs of being pre-diabetic - as in when someone simply had a bad week - and then the body resumes normal insulin function, once that person has gotten caught up in sleep again. If you suspect sleep apnea and you already have diabetes, I'd be willing to bet that the two are not 100% unrelated and a C-PAP machine just might help boost your health a bit. Those who have sleep apnea rarely, if ever, sleep deeply enough to drift into REM sleep, which is the true resting activity for the brain, because their airways are closing up and their brains must force them to raise their level of consciousness in order to force a breath every few minutes or so, to do a task (breathing) that is normally an autonomic nervous system function, not a conscious function. Even when awake, if you must consciously tell your lungs to breathe, there's a reason for it (pneumonia, emphysema, etc.) and you would know very well how ill you are, for sure. It's not normal to have to "think" about each breath. It's not good for you for your oxygen-deprived brain to have to switch mechanisms (autonomic to conscious activity) in order to force that normally automatic function, even when sleeping.

As the experienced drivers above have said, above, this is extremely serious, when you're pulling a tractor with 40 tons behind you and you fall asleep unexpectedly from years and years of true exhaustion that you've been unaware of. Many patients have reported phenomenal improvements in health, including weight loss, once using the C-PAP (continuous positive airway pressure).

-mountain girl

Maybe its time for the truck manufacturers to look at building a pressurized sleeper berth similar to an air plane cabin. Make the truck a cpap machine and get 100% compliance.

Im sure thats way over simplified but how hard could it be to make a cab air tight and under positive pressure all the time. The truck itself could monitor cabin pressure and log anytime there is a pressure loss.

I just read this morning Mercedes is testing a truck in Germany on the Autobahn to drive itself. Seems a pressurized cabin should be a piece of cake.

Ok..... enough.... im going back to my coffee and thinking in the box

So at first I thought the along the same lines as many here, basically ticked off that I was being stereotyped and labelled due to my weight. But after being on the c-pap machine consistently for months now, I can honestly say that it will make your life better. The DOT compliance rules for sleep apnea is not just another rule, but has a lot to do with effective therapy. It's a pain having to wear that mask every night, but I am truly grateful to have become aware of the issue and have a better quality of life. Of course I'm hitting the gym hard so I can hopefully get rid of the thing as soon as possible!!