Sleep Apnea?

There is a so-called "medical disorder" called "sleep apnea."

I had it, took the treatment for many years, got started in Kung Fu at the age of 74 and "solved" the sleep apnea problem.

Doctors would tell you that this is not possible. In extreme cases they recommend surgery for this disorder, but normally once you "have" it, you have it for the rest of your life.

It means that you wear a "sleep apnea mask" at night when you sleep -- without wearing that mask you might just die in your sleep.

Somewhere, next to your bed, is your source of life-giving air you need to stay alive -- fed into your body while you sleep, through a mask as shown on the right, from a special pump as shown on the left further below.

On the immediate right is another style of mask you can sleep with -- more like the type I wore for MANY years!

The symptoms? Usually you are an older person, overweight, and you snore at night. The snoring is often enough to drive a couple into separate beds. My father had this problem so intense that he and his wife had to sleep in separate bed rooms -- so it is no small thing.

The medical symptom is that while you are "sleeping" you somehow fail to breathe in air and you are lying there, not breathing. The lack of oxygen to your body is enough (if you are lucky) to wake you up. You wake up, gulp down some air and hopefully go back to sleep.

You might even do this many times per night and never even know that you are doing it.

When your sleep is interrupted by this type of problem you don't get deep sleep and you wake up tired -- and don't know why.

You just figure that it is another proof, if one is needed, that you are old and getting older, sliding downhill.

The medical test, you'll be glad to know your tax dollars pay for, is a "sleep apnea test" where you go to a "sleep center" and sleep. They put a bunch of electric sensors all over your body -- to keep track of pulse and electrical flows. Half of the night you sleep without any mask -- so they see how bad your breathing is.

In the four hours of that test I "woke up" about 90 times!

That is, 90 times I stopped breathing long enough to approach being conscious, then gulped some air, and went back to a shallow sleep.

Then they fitted me with a mask to see how I would respond to the thing. I spent the next 4 hours with that mask blowing air into my nostrils.

I slept well -- it was great.

I couldn't wait for my own mask and pump to be fitted to me. That was another chore -- I drove some distance to get the proper size of mask and to get instructions on how to use it.

I took that vital mask and pump with me on my 6-week Caribbean Vacation trip -- had to make sure that all the hotels had electric plugs (even the sailing vessel we cruised on) so I could plug in the mask and breathe during the night.

I wore that mask for more than four years, EVERY NIGHT, even on trips. I didn't like it -- it was not painful, but it was annoying. But, if I tried to sleep without it my sweet wife told me my snoring was keeping her awake.

So, I slept for hundreds of nights, without missing one, with that mask over my face.

You can get used to such things, just as the really old people you see are walking with their back bent, with a cane and die like a piece of dried fish!

This thing "solved" the snoring -- so that was a plus! But, I had to carry a special luggage bag to hold my pump and mask, and the extra pieces and repair parts that were needed. That pump became my life-line to life.

Probably most of the people who come to the Yong Moon Moo Kwan are young and in good health. Probably there aren't many 74 year old guys who start here, and even if so, few of them have ever probably even heard of "sleep apnea."

You may not be interested in this "medical condition" but, believe me, when it hits you, usually in your elder years, it becomes an unpleasant part of the rest of your life.

Those who start in Kung Fu early and continue, will never know what they've missed in the way of health problems.

I know. I appreciate Kung Fu and what it has done for me far more than the young kids who started Kung Fu early and never had the chance to see the remarkable restoration of health that can be had.

So, what is "sleep apnea?"

When I first "came down" with this health problem I started, as I usually do, research and publishing my findings on one of my 50 web sites. Click here for a pop up window with several illustrative links to my web pages where I describe "sleep apnea."

Sleep apnea is very common, as common as adult diabetes, and affects more than twelve million Americans, according to the National Institutes of Health. Risk factors include being male, overweight, and over the age of forty, but sleep apnea can strike anyone at any age, even children. Yet still because of the lack of awareness by the public and healthcare professionals, the vast majority remain undiagnosed and therefore untreated, despite the fact that this serious disorder can have significant consequences.

Untreated, sleep apnea can cause high blood pressure and other cardiovascular disease, memory problems, weight gain, impotency, and headaches. Moreover, untreated sleep apnea may be responsible for job impairment and motor vehicle crashes. Fortunately, sleep apnea can be diagnosed and treated. Several treatment options exist, and research into *additional options continues. (source: Karl Loren newsletter dated February 2003 -- Popup window)
 

Sleep apnea is a serious, potentially life-threatening condition that is far more common than generally understood. First described in 1965, sleep apnea is a breathing disorder characterized by brief interruptions of breathing during sleep. It owes its name to a Greek word, apnea, meaning “want of breath.” There are two types of sleep apnea: central and obstructive. Central sleep apnea, which is less common, occurs when the brain fails to send the appropriate signals to the breathing muscles to initiate respirations. Obstructive sleep apnea is far more common and occurs when air cannot flow into or out of the person’s nose or mouth although efforts to breathe continue.  

In a given night, the number of involuntary breathing pauses or “apnea events” may be as high as 20 to 60 or more per hour. These breathing pauses are almost always accompanied by snoring between apnea episodes, although not everyone who snores has this condition. Sleep apnea can also be characterized by choking sensations. The frequent interruptions of deep, restorative sleep often leads to excessive daytime sleepiness and may be associated with an early morning headache.

Early recognition and treatment of sleep apnea is important because it may be associated with irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke. (Source: "official" description quoted on Karl's page -- pop up window.)

How does someone get "cured" of sleep apnea?

If you look in Google for that phrase you get the crazy people who say they can "cure" sleep apnea, but you won't find a single workable technique -- and no one mentions exercise! Click here for the pop up window of those Google results.

These foolish references, like other "hopeless diseases" always include the psychiatric drug and counseling group that "helps" you overcome the "worry" connected with this disorder - since the disorder cannot be cured, you might as well, they say, get "cured" of the worry that goes with it!

I didn't start off my Kung Fu with any thought that it might affect my sleeping practices -- although Grandmaster Moon often remarked that our exercises might well cause such changes.

She never even knew that I "suffered" from this malady.

As I said, the mask was annoying. I would sometimes leave it off, only to be reminded by my wife of my snoring.

Then, one day, I went to sleep without the mask and didn't snore enough to annoy her sleep.

What a marvel -- change was taking place.

After I realized what was happening, I went to sleep without the mask more often and found that I was no longer snoring (very much) and that I got a good night's sleep and felt well-rested.

There was no sudden change -- I just slid into normalcy.

At this writing, on June 21, 2006, I've not used that mask for more than a month and my sleeping is getting better and better -- along with my increase about 6 weeks earlier, to an enthusiastic 7-day-per-week schedule of Kung Fu exercise at home plus two visits to the school.

[As of this inserted comment on September 10, 2006, I've so much forgotten this sleep mask that I never think of it -- never use it. It is just another of those improvements that is so natural that, when it occurs, you think, "Well, that's not new -- that's just "normal."]

Yes, I would be glad to advise ANYONE with a sleep disorder: Get your body into some regular exercise -- Kung Fu will do it.

You can throw away the mask and sleep normally again.

Not bad!

Karl Loren