Sleep Apnea...Proceeding after diagnosis

I can't tell anybody else what to do, but my life changed when I went on cpap. I used to get up several times a night to pee (chalked it up to being 50) and would often wake up with a headache and thought the gas furnace was on the blink. One time while in my car I dozed off at a red light. Once I got on the machine those problems went away. A few months ago I was caught away from home and tried to sleep without it. No chance.

I sleep on my side so it took some trial and error to find headgear that worked for me, but once I did I've had no problems at all. I'm not here to sell you anything, but anybody who says that sleep apnea and cpap are urban legends simply doesn't know what they're talking about.

 

If you are diagnose by your current company an get the machine an maybe later down the line for some reason you go to another company will the diagnose from your previous employer follow you with your new employer

 

This thread is about CPAP, maybe you didn't bother to read the thread?
While it makes me puke to appear to be defending Crete, I'm really not. I'm just a lttle partial to the truth, not BS, not the hysterical mumblings of some hand wringing newbie.

AFAIK, they have not changed anything. IF you end up with the Crete Cpap machine, they just add a seperate cigarette lighter outlet in the sleeper, wired straight to the batteries, and hand you a common 400 watt inverter.
No $900, no charge for the cheapo inverter.

I don't know what inverter you had installed, maybe they are charging for $900 for some higher output inverter, that is not required for a cpap machine?
If so, it's CRETE trying to discourage people from wanting BIG inverters. This is Crete being cheap, and also wanting the trucks to be in pristine condition when they are sold, and if not, they want to bill whoever put holes in the truck, or 'altered' it in any way.

I think the rumor was they used to install bigger inverters for CPAP, but I have never seen one, and I had CPAP forced on me over 3 years ago. All I got was the separate cig lighter socket and a 400 watt inverter.

The truth about Crete is more damaging than the fairy tales people like to tell.

 

With the new DOT physical rules coming into effect...YES!

 

Monster, you are missing something here. By no means are we saying CPAP and sleep apnea are urban legends. There is a clear and present danger from sleep apnea! The problem is that medical companies and probably the trucking companies themselves are fanning the flames of public fear to foist unneeded sleep machines on drivers who do not need them in order to pad their wallets. This could cause a rash of accidents from drivers tired out from unneeded sleep CPAPs.

 

It definitely used to work this way, because EVERYONE thinks you get some kind of inverter with your CPAP now. You don't even get a 400 watt, they just have 12 volt plugs on the CPAPs now (maybe they didn't before..?).

As far as my inverter, yes, I wanted a "big" inverter to run a microwave. What else do you really need more than a 400 watt for? But the charge for that is 900, and I won't pay them that. Things are pretty well when I'm actually running here, but I'm not gonna lie, I'm really holding a grudge about the CPAP and now for this inverter. These guys are downright criminal sometimes.

 

I think sleep apnea can almost be closely related to SIDS in babies. Young people have even died in their sleep and they have no explanation for it since they are too old for SIDS.

My uncle years ago, this was in 1969, probably could have diagnosed with sleep apnea, but then there was no such thing. We would sleep overnight and you could hear when he quit breathing and lay there and wait for him to start again, he did snore like a freight train. I don't know if it contributed to his health and life, but most likely it did in the long run. He worked for the railroad and had the run any hours just like truckers with HOS also.

There have been other on TTR who have commented on how well they felt after using the CPAP machine, so there are those who have benefited from it. Second opinions are always great, but cost can be the problem if you are the one footing the bill.

 

I got my Cpap from the VA in 2012. The unit adjusts itself I didn't have to keep going back to make adjustments. When you do your physical you will need a readout from the VA to show your usage. Just call respitory and say you need a readout and it very simple. I believe you must have 4 hours a night 70% of the time but don't quote that. The machine was a major help for me, I didn't realize how poorly I was sleeping. I bought an inverter from Amazon and it worked fine. Good luck.

 

I will say that I'm firmly in the camp of believing most sleep apnea diagnosis's are scams by virtue of my experience. I have had sinus issues for years and when I was forced for a sleep study I brought this up to the sleep center nurses. They claimed that it had nothing to do with sleep apnea. Well, of course I was diagnosed with having mild to moderate sleep apnea, got the cpap used it for 3 months and still felt NO better, in fact I actually felt worse because I WAS now waking up every 3-4 hours because of the mask, I used nasal pillows, the full on mask made me feel way too claustrophobic. In hindsight it makes sense because with plugged up sinuses the air from the machine had no where to go so I'd wake up feeling like I was suffocating which I NEVER did before the machine. So, I did some research on-line and talked to my family doctor and found that sinus issues definitely ARE a factor in sleep apnea. My doctor sent me to an ENT doctor who found my sinuses were quite jacked up so I was prescribed a nasal spray to be used before bed and have never slept better WITHOUT the machine because I can now breathe. I know my experience isn't an isolated one either, especially at that particular DOT clinic and sleep center. They were not, surprisingly, affiliated, at least outwardly so.

The sleep center doctor told me that the feds will not make testing law because what they have done is to place the responsibility upon the DOT medical card facilities for determining that. So of course most facilities are going to require testing for anyone who even comes close to the "parameters" for testing because now they're responsible. So in reality, the feds have actually made screening the law without making it the "law". But still, some DOT approved clinics do not even ask any of the pre-screening questions. The one my wife's company uses doesn't even hand them the questionnaire with all the other paperwork.

I'd like to see the numbers for the "sleep" related crashes to see how many were caused by the driver simply not taking enough time to sleep compared with those who took enough time to sleep but just didn't get quality sleep. I know that's pretty much impossible to prove which is why we have the blanket sleep apnea diagnosis's now. A trucker falls asleep and crashes and he/she automatically had sleep apnea when other factors are rarely considered such as; was the driver using their time off to sleep or trash around in the truck stops? Was the driver fudging logs because they left the house too late and didn't get enough sleep before starting their trip? Or perhaps some folks bodies just can never get adjusted to the 24 hour clock many OTR drivers bodies have to endure?

 

Amen SlowPoke Amen


Beware of the Industrial Medical Complex