okay so sleep apnea has been kicking my ass since like late 2021 and im still kinda mad about it tbh
im typing this at like 3:18 a.m. eastern time in my little rental house outside columbus ohio, the cpap is humming like an irritated refrigerator, my dog is snoring louder than me now (ironic), and theres a half eaten bag of hot cheetos on the nightstand that i swore i wouldnt touch after 10 pm. classic me.
what sleep apnea actually feels like when its happening to YOU
its not just “you stop breathing”. its your brain going YO WAKE UP DUMBASS every 2–4 minutes all night long. you dont even remember most of the wake-ups but your body sure does. next morning you feel like someone parked a ford f-150 on your chest and then drove away.
i used to think i was just “tired all the time” because adulting is hard. nope. turns out i was getting approximately 12 minutes of actual deep sleep per night according to my sleep study. twelve. minutes.
the symptoms that finally made me stop gaslighting myself
- mouth so dry in the morning it feels like i french-kissed the sahara
- headaches that start right behind my eyeballs at 7:02 a.m. sharp
- nodding off during zoom meetings (caught myself once with my head literally bouncing off the desk)
- wife threatening to sleep in the guest room if i didnt “get that breathing thing checked”
- irritability so bad i almost cried when the mcdonalds app was down for 8 minutes
- remembering literally nothing i watched on netflix the night before
if that list sounds familiar… yeah. same.
sleep apnea causes — basically all the things i did to myself
doc was like “you check a lot of boxes lol”
- covid 25 pounds that i havent fully lost yet
- my weirdly narrow throat thanks mom & dad
- drinking 2–3 ipas most evenings “to relax”
- sleeping flat on my back because the dog claims the side
- allergies that turn my nose into a plugged garden hose every spring
for the non-me version thats actually written by doctors, the mayo clinic obstructive sleep apnea page is pretty solid and doesnt sugarcoat it.
treatment options i have personally suffered through
ranked by how much i hated them at first vs how glad i am now
- CPAP – feels like breathing through a garden hose at first. cried actual tears week one. now its just… my annoying boyfriend i cant break up with because he keeps me alive. aasm patient info on cpap if you want the official version
- losing weight – down 19 lbs so far. ahi score went from scary 42 to kinda manageable 11. still crave taco bell at 1 a.m. tho. very real struggle
- that wedge pillow – helped 17% maybe. mostly made my back hurt in new interesting ways
- mouth taping – saw it on tiktok. tried it. claustrophobia hit at 2:17 a.m. never again
- mandibular advancement device – $2100 later and my jaw feels like it went to boxing camp. meh results
- surgery – they wanted to do uppp. read one reddit thread about someone who couldnt swallow normally for six months. im good thanks
more balanced (less complaining) treatment info at the NHLBI sleep apnea treatments page
where im at right now (its not cute)
some nights i sleep like a normal person and wake up feeling dangerous levels of optimism. other nights the mask leaks air into my eyes, or the hose gets wrapped around my neck like im in a low-budget horror movie, or i forget to fill the humidifier and wake up with a nosebleed at 4 a.m. screaming “WHY GOD”
i still hate needing machinery to not die in my sleep. i still sometimes stare at the cpap on the dresser like its personal enemy #1. but then i remember the before times when i was crashing my car into mailboxes in my dreams and almost doing it irl once.
so.
if you snore like a wounded bear, wake up feeling worse than when you went to bed, or your partner has started sleeping with earplugs and resentment… go get checked. the sleep study is awkward and boring and you sleep like crap in their lab bed but its literally life-changing data.
im not fixed. im better. thats enough for today.
anyone else out here calling their cpap “the scuba ex” or am i the only weirdo?
dont eat spicy ramen right before bed btw. rookie error. i still do it anyway.
talk soon (or not, because im probably asleep with my robot mask on)
(also sorry for any typos im running on like 5 hours of cpap-interrupted sleep rn)
