Sleep apnea - it is not a life sentence.

Four and a half years ago I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. This is a condition that affects a number of people - many of whom are overweight.

For those that don't know sleep apnea is (simply) a condition where the sufferer stops, and then suddenly starts, breathing periodically through the night. In a little more detail as your apnea incident approaches, your throat muscles relax, you start excessively loud snoring, your heart slows right down and then you stop breathing then your brain triggers a partial wake up and your heart pounds back into action, throat muscles regain rigidity allowing air to pass and you start breathing again. To a degree everyone experiences some of this every night (the average person will have up to 5 apnea incidents in an hour) - my AHI (average hourly incidents) was at 67 when I was first diagnosed - this meant that my heart was slowing to around 20-30BPM and then speeding to around 180-200BPM more than once a minute for the entire night. I was waking with a sore throat from snoring, headaches from lack of oxygen, and tired and cranky from having less than 15 minutes of actual resting sleep over the course of the night. This translated into me becoming zombie-like around 2pm (actually sleeping at my desk some days) as well as elevating my blood pressure and increasing my reliance on caffeine and sugars to keep me (barely) functional. Of course the other side effect was absolutely no energy to exercise.

At the time I was diagnosed I was 117kg. My doctor told me with such a high AHI I would likely be on CPAP treatment for the rest of my life (CPAP is a positive pressure machine with a mask that you wear while sleeping to create an air splint and keep your airways open). While this was not something I wanted to hear the CPAP machine made a massive difference to my life - suddenly I had energy again ... no headaches or sore throats and although it was a pain to have to "mask up" each night I did so religiously.

Anyway to make a long story ...well its already long .... to avoid making it a novel .... today my doctor told me to TOSS AWAY MY CPAP BECAUSE I AM CURED !!!! He actually called in three other doctors to tell them how much weight I had lost and how it had changed my health (and life expectancy).

My BP is now at the low end of normal, cholesterol is normal, lung function is good, resting pulse rate is around 55-60 (down from 85-90) and I now do not need the CPAP again.

Thank you MFP and to all my friends and family who have supported me so far. I am so happy right now that I am fighting back tears (ok ...so take my man card away from me).