A Retraction

Fifteen years I’ve been writing this column and this is the first time I remember writing a retraction! But a retraction is due and I owe it to you. What about? Sleep! We just can’t function well without enough good sleep; not just being in bed, but sleep.    

Last month I wrote a column called “CPAP Update,” wherein I suggested that I was able to ditch my CPAP machine after 15+ years because I was able to get enough quality sleep without it now that I’ve intentionally lost weight. Not so fast, Milby! While it’s true that my wife and I have both reached, and are maintaining, our weight loss goals of 20+ pounds each, that hasn’t reduced my sleep apnea to a point that I can do without the CPAP machine.

In my exuberance over the weight loss, and all its’ intended benefits, I tried doing without the CPAP machine for about a month, and for awhile it seemed like I was doing OK. I wasn’t. I’ve was feeling tired during the day, a classic symptom of apnea, and my smart watch was reporting less than three hours of sleep in spite of eight plus hours of bedtime. 

I jumped the gun in writing that column. I apologize, and this is a formal retraction! I hope none of you took your CPAP machines to the pawn shop after reading that column!

Now that I’ve gone back to using the CPAP machine, I’m feeling much more rested and my smart watch is registering almost eight hours of sleep. What a difference!

In preparation for this column I did some research by querying “When was sleep apnea first diagnosed”? I personally had never even heard of it until I was diagnosed around 2001 if I remember correctly. Wikipedia says ” The clinical picture of this condition has long been recognized as a character trait, without an understanding of the disease process. The term “Pickwickian syndrome” that is sometimes used for the syndrome was coined by the famous early 20th-century physician William Osler, who must have been a reader of Charles Dickens. The description of Joe, “the fat boy” in Dickens’s novel The Pickwick Papers, is an accurate clinical picture of an adult with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome.

Despite that, according to sleepmdnyc.com, “… the widespread presence of the condition, sleep apnea remained undiscovered until 1965”.  It is fascinating to me that a condition as wide spread as sleep apnea is estimated to be (Twenty-two million Americans have been estimated to have sleep apnea, with 80% of moderate and severe OSA cases undiagnosed per Wikipedia; other sources corroborate the magnitude of the disorder too), that it took so long to diagnose and properly treat it. It wasn’t until 1981 that a CPAP machine was first described by Colin Sullivan and associates in Sydney, Australia.

So, here’s a renewed call to action from John’s Hopkins medicine.org, “Early treatment of sleep apnea is important as it may be associated with:

• Irregular heartbeat
• High blood pressure
• Heart attack
• Stroke
• Daytime sleepiness
• Increased risk of motor vehicle accidents

So, if you’re having any of these symptoms, don’t ignore them or just chalk them up to “old age”. See you doctor and get some help. Sweet Dreams!

Thanks for reading All About Seniors… see you next week!

Bill Milby is a Director of Visiting Angels® of Central Georgia, a non-medical, living assistance service for seniors. If you have questions or comments about this column you can reach him at william.mercylink@gmail.com or search for us at facebook.com/VisitingAngelsofCentralGA