Sweet Dreams???

You may remember a few months ago, after a night at the Sleep Clinic that will live in my memory forever, I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. Once I came to terms with this I decided that the dreaded CPAP machine was not going to be in my future, no matter how loudly I was snoring. So what was I to do?

What’s Up Doc?

Luckily my Dentist came to the rescue. He said there is an appliance that has an 80-90 % success rate in treating sleep apnea. After I hugged him (not really but I was so happy I should have) I said sign me up. The catch was that I would have to do another sleep study to see if it would work for me. Yikes! I did not want to have to do that again, but if another sleep study meant that I wouldn’t have to wear a CPAP, I would do it. So, after all kinds of measurements and testing and a significant hit to my bank account, I was given a test appliance to take to my sleep study.

Night Moves

The big night arrived and after doing some meditation in my car to calm down, I went into the sleep clinic and got settled. Once I was in my PJs and ready to get hooked up with all the wires and sensors I played the ace up my sleeve – I told the technician that I wanted to avail myself of the calming medication they offer. He said no problem but I did detect a tiny bit of hesitation. Hmmmm.

After I was all hooked up the technician gave me the test appliance to try in. After a bit of a tussle to get it situated properly, I realized that I could not open my mouth with it in and could only breathe through my nose. Did I mention that I have claustrophobia? But never mind I told myself, it would be fine once I took the medication. Except this was the point when the technician announced that there would be a delay with the medication, but not to worry, it would be here soon. About half an hour later he confessed that they did not have any medication to give me and would that be OK?

At this point I am in my pyjamas, it’s 10 PM and I have about a gazillion sensors stuck all over my body with this gloopy glue stuff and he asks if that is OK with me? My first instinct was to say no it was not OK and bolt, but fortunately I was getting used to the appliance and so decided to soldier on.

I did make it through the night OK and actually had a surprisingly good sleep. I was hoping my good sleep meant the appliance would work for me which, soon after, was confirmed by the sleep doctor. Yayyyyy! Now it was just a matter of getting the final appliance made and delivered into my hands (or should I say mouth).

The Big Day

A few weeks later I was sitting in the dental chair looking forward to receiving my appliance. One of the dental assistants went over in great detail how to care for the appliance and how to get it in and out of my mouth which proved to be quite a feat. Then came the part where she said it might take up to two weeks before I could wear it through the night, but I should keep trying to keep it in longer each night. Not surprisingly my claustrophobia decided to make an appearance again but I was determined to make this work.

Fast forward to that evening getting ready for bed. I showed my husband what the appliance looked like and told him to pay attention to whether or not I snore during the night as the Dentist would use this information to judge if the appliance was working. I also told him once I put it in I couldn’t really talk. I choose to believe that the smile on his face when I said this was because he was so happy that I was getting treated, not the fact that I couldn’t talk to him.🤣

I was surprised how fast I fell asleep and even more surprised when I awoke the next morning with the appliance still in my mouth. I did feel like I had a restful night and my husband told me my breathing was quiet and in his words, I didn’t make “any interesting noises.” I was happy to hear that I was quiet and chose not to delve into what exactly he meant by interesting noises. Some things are better off left unsaid.😁

As of this writing I am four nights in and things are going very well. Our Alexa speaker can now understand my garbled words when I ask her to turn out the light and my husband has commented every morning about how quiet I was overnight. His enthusiasm about this leads me to wonder how noisy I actually was before I got my appliance. But that is a topic for another time.

For now I say Sweet Dreams!