What if a trucker has sleep apnea?

I have a feeling my DOT physical (at least the one the school wants me to complete) will be an easy one. They handed me the paper and its my Dr office that does them for the school. So that is fine with me

Funny thing about that 4hr usage. That is actually a Medicare requirement for their compliancy period. In order for Medicare to pay for the machine (which is a 13 month rental) they require a 3 month compliancy, 4hr a night, at least 70% during that time. Most insurances tag along with what medicare goes by for that periord.

 

How did you guys find out that you might have sleep apnea.
My wife tells me that not only I can snore but sometimes while asleep it may take me awhile to take another breath...then, lately, after I added a few more pounds on me again, I woke up a few times grasping for breath...is that it?
I remember that whenever I was on a heavier side, closer to 280lbs, like now, these occurrences happen a few times a year and waking up as if choking is scary as hell. However, whenever I shed some weight under 260 lbs these things stop.
I don't feel sleepy or drowsy during a day but I never sleep in. I typically sleep 5-6 hours and I feel recharged. I am 50 and while I would like to take best care of my health, I'd consider going for a sleep test but, at the same time, I would not want to shoot myself in the foot by bringing all the regulatory BS on myself. I never fall asleep without either reading or watching TV, I don't know how I could tolerate the CPAP machine tbh.

 

@kemosabi49
If an applicant has sleep apnea, does NOT report it to the examiner, passes the D.O.T. physical, gets hired onto the trucking company, & the applicant is seen with the cpap machine by someone at the trucking company, can the applicant be terminated for falsifying his or her job application?

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

The absolute sheer driving force of our national economy - without truck drivers, our entire national economy would come to an absolute standstill - if not outright be dead.

Over the mountains, through the woods, into the valleys, coast to coast, from sea to shining sea - truck drivers can and do go anywhere and everywhere, every day, every night, all year round.

 

Short answer - yes, but they won't, because it would open up a huge can of worms.

In practice, getting "caught" hiding a cpap machine just isn't going to happen. First, someone has to see it AND think it's something significant. No mechanic is going to know if the driver is running a "speakeasy cpap". Most DMs aren't ever going to look at a driver's gear, and I doubt most of them could list their drivers that require a cpap.

After it is "discovered", someone has to do something about it, and frankly it's too much work for too small an issue.

 

To have sleep apnea someone is needs to stop breathing for 10 seconds or more. Then they also need to stop breathing 5 time or more per hour. That on the low side of sleep apnea scale, some people that have sleep apnea stop breathing for 10 seconds 30 or 50 or more times per hour. That's when some with sleep apnea has it really bad. If someone stops breathing 30 times per hour at 10 seconds each time. That's 300 seconds per hour of not breathing. Divide that by 60 seconds and that person is not breathing 5 minutes every hour they sleep. They have sleep apnea scale and if you on the low side of say 5 time per hour someone might not feel a big difference. If someone is on the high side of 30 times per hour they will notice a big help from a CPAP machine.

If someone wakes themselves up by snore loud or they have lots of scary dreams they might have sleep apnea. The scary dreams wake up sweating sometimes could be sign of sleep apnea. Because when people sleep and stop breathing you basically joking at night. So the brain pumps adrenaline into body to try and wake someone up. All that adrenaline can make the crazy scary dreams. That will wake someone up. I had crazy dream I was going to die and would wake up. Now on CPAP I almost never have dreams that wake me up.

 

Very interesting insight. It is good to know that the CPAP actually works and improved your sleep quality. Thank you.
One thing for sure, I used to sleep better. I thought that the sleep quality deteriorated due to more stress and perhaps that when you enter middle age, you don't sleep as much and as good. Now, waking up from a nightmare while desperate to catch a breath seems to describe what I experienced a few times lately. And these occurrences also happened some time ago when I was on a heavier side of my weight. I kind of hope that this would go away again when I lose some pounds.
Heck, I'll better look into it, research and read more on it. If I have it, though, and if the cpap machine will be recommended, I'll sure try to use and see if it improves my sleep. It is all what matters. I just hope this would not complicate my medical card in such a way that I'll have to go through some bureaucratic hoops and loops every time it comes to renewal.

 

I stopped like 80ish times and hour or equivalent to almost 15 mins an hour

 

Non waking dreams must be nice, I use a bipap but still have severe night terrors and actually while I was doing my sleep study I had one and the EEG showed seizure like activity and they called an emergency response because they thought I was having a new onset seizure
Sleep great other wise