
Dumb Like Me: A Year Low On Oxygen - rjurney
http://datasyndrome.com/post/23339122301/dumb-like-me
======
lee
I had the reverse happen to me. Since my teens, I had been lethargic and
constantly tired. I could sleep for 9 to 10 hours a day and still be
exhausted. I'd nap if I could. Throughout the day, I'd just feel constantly
tired, even in the morning.

At the prodding of my wife, I saw a physician about it and got a sleep study
done. I found I out had obstructive sleep apnea. They put me on a CPAP device.

I remember the first time waking up after using it. I felt like a new person,
like I was a walking zombie who got a second chance at life. It's been a year
since I started using it, and it's hard for me to imagine how I survived
previously without that CPAP device. Life has become so much easier. I feel
smarter, because I have the ability to focus my attention much longer,
participate in conversations more easily, and not be so easily confused during
meetings. When you're just a bit smarter, it has compounding effects on your
life.

The worst thing about this, was that since my tiredness was so chronic, and
since I had never experienced being totally rejuvenated, I never thought I had
a sleeping problem. I just attributed to being an immutable property of who I
am, or my physical body, and never something that could be corrected.

~~~
giardini
Several posts here about the marvelous CPAP machine, but I've never known
anyone who used a CPAP to any benefit.

They take them off during the night, the mask comes undone when they roll
over, etc. Like those mobility carts advertised on late-night TV for
obese/walk-impaired people, the CPAP appears to be primarily another profit
centre for manufacturers who feed on the Medicare/Medicaid, welfare and
insurance systems.

Meanwhile there's no question that the problem is real. But more direct
solutions are better: take learn how to breathe deeply, exercise, lose weight
(most people on CPAP are obese), eat better, take vitamins (E, B12 and iron,
aid oxygen transport), drink coffee!

~~~
johnnyg
I run CPAP.com and CPAPtalk.com. I want to tell you that this treatment can
and does work.

The things I tell you here are things I've told my parents in law, family
members and friends whom I love, have been effective and are living healthier
now due to CPAP.

The very first thing to know is that when you have Sleep Apnea, your airway
closes during night and you can not get oxygen. Your body much choose to
either breathe to wake. It chooses to wake many times a night which prevents
restorative sleep. This physical reality and the bodies reaction to it can not
be fixed by learning to breathe deeply. While weight loss can help, many in
shape people are also affected simply due to their particular airway anatomy.
Drinking coffee to offset these systems is akin to extreme overclocking of
computer - eventually you will burn it out. In this case, what burns out is
your heart or your veins.

In insurance coding, every CPAP is coded E0601. Say you went to a car lot and
the sales person would be paid by a third party the same amount of money no
matter what car you received. Say they also knew you _needed_ a car. This is
how the "CPAP through insurance" system works today. There is no incentive to
provide high end equipment, though it exists, works far better than basic
equipment and "makes CPAP work".

CPAP.com is different than traditional providers. We do not accept insurance
of any kind. We accept cash in exchange for equipment. This allows us to do
several things that traditional providers can't:

1\. We carry all equipment, not just one line of bargin basement stuff. There
is high end equipment only available on the internet. There are very
affordable $179 CPAPs that fit in your hand available. There are travel solar
panel systems for CPAPs the size of your hand coming out. There are very low
profile, light weight, well sealing CPAP masks available today. We post all
reviews given on the equipment. No filters, no censoring, the straight story
on user experience. We also post sales data as percentages that update weekly
and publish it in aggregate and to each product page. In this way, you can see
what "the market" for CPAP chooses, compare that to your needs and make an
informed choice.

2\. We answer the phones and we know of what we speak. Once your insurance is
billed, there are codes for follow up services. That means every call you
place to a provider after billing is an expense.

3\. We have incentive to solve your problem. You are the customer, not the
insurance company. Why would you put your cash on the barrel instead of just
paying with your insurance card? We have to hustle to earn you business. We
have to solve your problem remotely and immediately. We can and do. We are
laser focused on solving your problem - not billing your insurance, not
pandering to your doctors, not pleasing Medicare. You are the center of our
world.

I've got a lot more to say about why we are different, but I will wrap the
sales pitch.

Go visit www.cpaptalk.com. CPAP.com built it but doesn't advertise on it. No
advertising is accepted. CPAP users there are free to speak with each other
without filter or interference. It is the place to get uncensored answers from
real people who have made CPAP work for me and can make it work for you.

Our CSR Manager is Elizabeth Vollmer and you can reach her at
1-800-356-356-5221 x216 or elizabeth.vollmer at cpap dc. Tell her you read the
HN post.

You can reach me at 832-413-2462 or johnny at cpap dc, it rings cell or
office. After hours, whatever - I will answer and do my level best to help.

On CPAPtalk, a lady with the handle of RestedGal is a legend and saint. I bet
she's up to 5,000 people directly using CPAP because of her efforts. If you
want to keep it internet private instead of calling, register and private
message her.

Core message: CPAP works. We believe it in because CPAP.com's business is
turning CPAP through insurance refugees into happy CPAP users, because we see
it work on CPAPtalk and because we care about the treatment and you.

------
steve8918
About 9 months ago I went through the exact same thing. I was experiencing the
inability to learn new things, the inability to remember very basic words (so
I would stall in the middle of a conversation, trying to remember the word),
and sometimes I was confused over things that were extremely basic, like which
toothbrush was mine. It was extremely debilitating, and being a programmer it
affected my performance drastically. I couldn't fix bugs quickly, and when
given new tasks, it would take me much much longer to actually understand WTF
I was supposed to do. I then started getting a tremendous headache that felt
like a vise grip on the back of my neck, and at that point, I couldn't even
remember what I had done earlier that day. Trying to learn new things was
almost impossible, it was like my brain was unable to function at all.

After a couple of months of this, I finally went to the doctor, and
immediately got an MRI for possible brain tumor. Thankfully it turned out
negative, and that's when I did some self-diagnosis and thought I must be
sleep-deprived. I was getting about 4-6 hrs sleep every night for years, so I
immediately started getting into bed at 10pm and would lay there until I
eventually fell asleep.

Within a week, my headache disappeared and I felt much better. The funny thing
is that since then, I can't stay away past 10:30pm, regardless of how long I
sleep. By 9:30pm I'm exhausted, and after staying up past midnight for
years/decades, a few months after sleeping at 10:30pm, I have almost no
capacity to stay up late anymore.

I still think I have other sleep problems like obstructive sleep apnea,
because I still don't get good quality sleep, so I'm scheduled for a sleep
clinic in the next few weeks. I went to a seminar hosted by Kaiser on this,
and the symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea were so exactly the same as what I
was experiencing that I almost burst into tears because I realized I wasn't
crazy, and it felt like there was finally some hope.

In summary: get your sleep, it is precious!

~~~
DenisM
Welcome to being old! :) while you can no longer stay up all night, the
company here is nice and every morning can become a little cause for
celebration if you slept well. I'll fix you a cup of decaf tee. :)

On a more serious note, if tests show apnea be sure to inquire about all
remedies. I spent months in a love/hate relationship with CPAP before I
discovered a more expensive but much more convenient dental appliance. So
grill them till you hear all options.

~~~
ehsanu1
Can you please name this dental appliance? There is also a relatively minor
surgery where silicon is embedded to prevent airway collapse (a common cause
of sleep apnea).

~~~
DenisM
<http://www.ihatecpap.com/oral_appliance.html>

Mine is "TAP". Two thousand bucks later I feel alive again.

------
DanielBMarkham
As somebody who had severe OSA for several years and didn't know it, a couple
of points.

1) For onlookers, especially with a chronic condition, this is symptom-free.
You might just appear to be more cranky, or forgetful -- normal signs of
aging.

2) Even for the person experiencing it, chronic hypoxia doesn't necessarily
"feel" like anything. I was regularly getting my blood oxygen down into the
upper 60s and as long as I had enormous amounts of caffeine I was good to go.
Over time, especially after getting a CPAP, I realized to look for symptoms:
skipping over words in the middle of a sentence and guessing incorrectly what
they were, a more difficult time focusing (both mentally and with my eyes),
and so on. Hypoxia in pilots has been studied over and over again, and no
matter how hard you train, it still sneaks up on people and takes over. Scary
stuff.

3)You do not necessarily experience an overnight resurrection when this
condition is fixed. Many do, but many do not. Sometimes you just realize that
you're now entering a long phase of recovery.

I can't adequately describe the emotional transition that goes with
recognizing hypoxia and getting it fixed. There's a sense of joy, sure, but
also a sense of fear: you realize just how close to death you were living, and
how dependent you now are on a machine (or drug or whatnot). Living low on
oxygen is a frightening and life-changing experience. Once I realized I was
basically strangling myself every night -- passing out and then coming to over
and over again just enough to be able to breathe again -- it dramatically
changed my image of my body not letting me down. Hypoxia teaches that you can
be severely broken in ways that you are not able to discern. Not fun.

~~~
cpher
Your experience sounds like mine. I've been on a CPAP for almost 3 months now,
and after 5 hours of sleep I'll lie awake in bed ready to start the day. It's
really amazing what "good" quality sleep does for you. During my sleep study,
I peaked at 52 apnea events/hour (25+ is considered extreme). Plus, my wife is
getting better sleep without my snoring!

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I was measured at 113, but they probably caught me on a bad night :)

It is truly amazing the difference, not only in wakefulness but in attitude
and ability to intellectually focus that a good night's sleep brings.

~~~
DenisM
113? Twice a minute?! Ouchie.

------
spindritf
> Being dumb came with a shocking loss of privilege. This was humbling. Smart
> people, like the very attractive, get special treatment they do not know
> they are getting.

I think this is the most impactful part, could you elaborate? Describe a few
of those experiences? People talk a lot about privilege, how taller people
make more money for no apparent reason, how good looking people are treated
better, particularly women, but IMHO it's intelligence that gives one the
biggest boost in (non-romantic) relations with others in today's society.

Sure, there's an awkward geek who doesn't get as much as they could with their
IQ scores but if you're relatively intelligent, and especially if you're also
talkative, you can see the attitudes of people (from the cable guy and cashier
at the store to course instructors and priests) changing in real time as your
sentences get longer and not corrupted with filling words, as you with drop a
few two-dollar words or describe an even relatively simple physics mechanism.

Their eyes light up. Maybe it's just because they have to give you more
attention to process what you're saying but the difference is more than
noticeable.

~~~
jonnathanson
Maybe this is pure anecdote, but I've noticed that more intelligent
(especially hyperintelligent) people tend to have more attention _to give_ in
a conversation. They're more present. They can follow what you're saying, or
lead you in directions you hadn't considered (i.e., by surfacing insight).
This makes for a dynamic, interesting conversation that -- to your point --
forces you to stay alert and engaged with them. The exchange is more engaging
on both sides, regardless of subject matter. And subconsciously, we tend to
think more highly of people who seem more engaged with what we're saying.

~~~
antidoh
Humans being human, that's not universal. While I've noticed that some very
intelligent people are more pleasant and enlightening to talk to, some others
just can't seem to be bothered to give you their full attention. It's as if
you don't meet their "worth paying attention to" threshold. Symptoms can be
anything from a vague dullness of the eyes, to glancing or even reading their
monitor, to just total loss of engagement in the middle of a sentence.

But again, humans being humans, that's not limited to very intelligent people.

------
colonel_panic
Does he mean he's writing a book about this experience? I guess it will be
like Flowers for Algernon, but inverted.

------
josephcooney
how do you discover if you have a condition like this?

I bet that could be a diabolical problem - you need cognitive surplus to
recognize you have a problem, and investigate what the causes might be and how
you can identify them. And the problem you have is robbing you of that
cognitive surplus.

~~~
zitterbewegung
You or someone you know notices your behavior changing or you show other
symptoms and then you see a doctor? Then the doctor diagnoses you with this
problem. I don't see how else you would discover it.

------
baddox
I found the implication that less intelligent people are more expressive and
in control of their emotions rather odd.

~~~
spindritf
I think it's the opposite -- they're less in control of their emotions.
Impulse control is correlated with IQ AFAIR. Which is why the author had a
chance to practice self-control.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
ADHD is correlated with a decrease of 10 IQ points.

------
Wickk
I have severe asthma, when I have an attack that will last for hours this used
to be how I would describe what it's like during that time. I loathe those
periods when I can't think, process a thought correctly or function like I do
when I'm just breathing like normal.

I can't imagine going through this every second of my day for as long you do
did. And in comparison those few hours when I can't breathe and I'm waiting
for my medicine to work feel like a blessing in the sense that it could very
much worse like what you experienced. Wow.

------
gonzo
About 2.5 years ago, I went through the exact same thing. I managed to survive
an ascending aortic dissection, and the resultant 11 hours of emergency open
heart surgery.

post-surgery, my RBC count was abysmal. Simply walking would cause an intense
headache. I feared it would never improve, and that I would be stupid forever.

but I did.

------
joelrunyon
Here's the original Quora thread this is reposted from -
<http://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-be-stupid>

------
xyzzyz
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1990498>

Similar story posted some time ago.

------
mgkimsal
Odd... I don't think I have that condition, yet still cry openly at sad bits
in movies. Or songs. Or TV shows. Heck, I was just crying at AYBS? last night
(just the sad bit).

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berntb
There are other reasons you might stop functioning.

From me and people I know, you might feel bad and just stop functioning
(tiredness, lack of energy) from undiagnosed allergies without throat
symptoms, iron deficiency and a simple bacteria infection in a tooth.

Also note that you might e.g. increase in weight from being tired and then get
sleep apnea, so there might be a reason behind some problems.

Please don't waste as much time as I personally did. (Yes, more than one
year.)

Disclaimer: I am no medical expert and don't know about relative risks.

------
Daniel_Newby
Former Googler Piaw Na writes about his sleep apnea problem:
<http://www.google.com/search?q=piaw+na+sleep+apnea>

He says that many Asians with sleep apnea are NOT obese. They are predisposed
by racial variations in anatomy.

------
somestuff
i liak ham, iz gud

~~~
somestuff
self suppert the ham liak scenario, iz gud

------
somestuff
So hey, Russell or anyone. My father has had sleep apnea for some years and
due to 2008 finance fuckery the loss of most of his retirement funds and loss
of his career, his health has been in a downward spiral. In particular his
mental health worries me. Just reading the title of this post I feel strong
emotions about this issue. Imgur.com and getting him the fuck off television
has been a godsend as its more than a one way street, but without massive
financial help all the needed care is impossible. Jesus christ this post is
sad fuck the USA.

