Sleeping In Stanford

I've been trying to become more organized lately, and one of the things I've meaning to do for a quite a while is to get an evaluation to determine once and for all whether or not I have sleep apnea. I'm pretty sure I have it, but I wanted to go and get checked out to be sure - plus, I'd pretty much need to anyway, if I really want to do anything about it. So I set up an appointment yesterday with the Sleep Disorder Clinic in Stanford, on the recommendation of one of my friends.

Traffic on the way there was sluggish, so I was about twenty minutes late. There was a few slowdowns en route, plus Stanford seemed to be one of those towns that has one main drag that you need to take to get anywhere - so being on it approaching nine o'clock in the morning is a bad idea (though the residential part is nice, even if I had no time to savor it). I pulled off once to check and see if I'd missed my turn-off, but I was on the right track. MapQuest was a little muddy on the location of the Psychiatry Building, but otherwise traffic was the main problem. The staff was friendly, and I was given directions to what part of the building housed the clinic (the sign-age was also pretty good). Fortunately, no one at reception seemed to care that I was late, which was a huge relief.

In a unusual burst for foresight, I decided to fill out my paperwork two nights before my office visit (they mailed me the forms after I called to set up the appointment). I was glad I did - the questionnaire had over two hundred questions - yikes! At first, I thought all of the questions dealt with apnea symptoms, and some of them looked really extreme. Daytime hallucinations? Dozing off in the middle of converstations? The hell? As it turned out, a bunch of those questions were there to rule out narcolepsy, which makes sense.

I had a couple of new forms to sign upon arriving, but since I'd filled out everything else already, the doctor could see me right away. The consultation took about ninety minutes, and a lot of it was a re-hash of what I'd filled out on the forms. Still, I was glad to have done the homework, as I was more focused and thorough in my part of the discussion. There were a few brief physical checks - mostly my nose and throat - but a lot of it was chewing over the test data and weighing the options if it was determined that I did have sleep apnea.

There's three basic approaches to treating the condition. Since it's caused by a narrowing of your breathing airway, the first option is a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine that literally inflates it. This works for a lot of people - so many that there's a website that sells nothing but these machines - but some people hate it, so there's other possibilities.

Option Two is surgery - they widen the airway by removing part of the back of your throat. This is a mid-level solution, but I was told that this wouldn't help me at all.

Option Three is more radical surgery - moving most of the lower/front part of the skull forward to widen the airway. It can change your appearance, it's expensive, and it takes months to heal. Needless to say, I really hope the CPAP machine works.

The next step is to basically have a sleepover at the clinic, and take a test to monitor my breathing. That'll conclusively determine if I have sleep apnea, and how severe it is. If it's really severe, my onsite sleep ranger will wake me up and hook me up to a CPAP immediately. Regardless, I'll probably have another visit to help figure out exactly what CPAP pressure my airway needs. My first overnight test will be next week, so I'll keep you posted!

PS - I've also been asked to take part in some research since I'm being tested anyway, but I'm not sure about it. Everyone I've met at the clinic is great, but that could be pretty time-consuming, especially since I live an hour away from the clinic!