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Night of the living brain fog dead or how I hacked myself better via open source

decodebytes.substack.com

71–80 of 334 posts

Re: Night of the living brain fog dead or how I hacked myself better via open source

#71
post #20

"the National Health System have yet to even send me a letter" That's the crucial point here. Health care failed him, but luckily he was rich enough to privately purchase multiple medical devices just to try it they might help.

You’re not wrong on the facts, but if you’re implying that we should not feel good about this story, I disagree. One crab has managed to climb out of the bucket. The rest of us should celebrate for a minute and then redouble our efforts to get everyone to the same place, leveraging the lessons he’s passed on. Upwards!

Yep.

I happened to help another crab and I think it may be the single best thing I’ve ever done.

My wife’s family was constantly making fun of my father-in-law for falling asleep during the day, falling out of chairs etc. One day I noticed he was fluttering in and out of sleep while driving me so I asked him if he wanted to try my travel CPAP that night - I have very mild apnea and can get by without it.

He tried it and after the first night he was a completely different person, it was almost like someone drugged him up with PEDs. The home remodelers that were working there were jokingly peeved because he started helping them and they said he was going to put them out of work.

Just transformative, I feel so good about it.

Re: Night of the living brain fog dead or how I hacked myself better via open source

#72
post #36
post #27

Sleep apnea is strange. Good news! We have a diagnosis, sleep apnea. You're bad at sleeping now, the thing everybody has to do all night long every day since birth. The solution is to wear a modern iron lung whenever you want or need to sleep forever. Many times it's because people are overweight but you aren't. Is that really all there is for treatment? No throat exercises or therapeutic sleeping positions? No diets…

>No throat exercises or therapeutic sleeping positions? No diets? No botox injections for your uvula or a daily pill to obviate breathing while sleeping? Since OP's apnea is not obstructive, sleeping position, botox, etc. won't make a difference.

This is what I was talking about. The patient has apnea type b. The prognosis remains Bad at Sleeping, use iron lung type b with no alternatives.

Most people have type a and use iron lung type a, there are some treatments for this type but most people opt for the iron lung.

Re: Night of the living brain fog dead or how I hacked myself better via open source

#74
I have sleep apnea after covid... and burn out. Cpap was a revelation but not a silver bullet.

The link between sleep apnea and weight is a vicious circle. Stop up every night and see if you fancy exercising after a couple of weeks!

Re: Night of the living brain fog dead or how I hacked myself better via open source

#76
post #55
post #5

Okay, serious question: The author of this blog post sleeps with his partner, and then discovered he spent 20 seconds of each minute gasping for breath, 40 times per hour. (Something like ~this). How did his wife not notice and tell him? Now I'm paranoid that I have sleep apnea. What's the cheapest wearable or device that can probably tell you if you have apnea?

There are more than a few free apps that can record audio of you the entire night in a zoomable, scrollable way (i.e. you look for the spikes in the waveform and listen to them) I used these for a bit in figuring out my own CPAP needs.

Thank you! This sounds like a very simple and free solution.

Re: Night of the living brain fog dead or how I hacked myself better via open source

#77
post #13

> The morale of the story, you need to sometimes tackle your own health and take matters into your own hands The frustrating thing for me is that doing so is often labeled as being anti-science, when the truth is, this guy was actually doing the science himself. It's not anti-science to take your health into your own hands. It's anti-outdated-underfunded-medical-systems.

This isn't science, it's medicine. Many parts of medical diagnosis are not completely scientific. It's also easy for people managing their own health to make mistakes that professionals would not.

Re: Night of the living brain fog dead or how I hacked myself better via open source

#78
post #16
post #13

> The morale of the story, you need to sometimes tackle your own health and take matters into your own hands The frustrating thing for me is that doing so is often labeled as being anti-science, when the truth is, this guy was actually doing the science himself. It's not anti-science to take your health into your own hands. It's anti-outdated-underfunded-medical-systems.

>>doing so is often labeled as being anti-science, when the truth is, this guy was actually doing the science himself. Yup, it is. Because like a cargo cult, most of the external signs are similar. The difference is in the depth of knowledge used, the rigor applied to the evidence, whether the person is actively avoiding or seeking confirmation bias, etc. So, yes, much of the time, it is actually anti-science. That s…

Edit, meant to type "it sometimes is", not it is

(didn't check my writing, too late to edit)

Re: Night of the living brain fog dead or how I hacked myself better via open source

#79
I saw an otolaryngology, got a sleep study, was prescribed a cpap with the study recommended pressure, and I am fine. I suppose I could have wandered the tech desert, but this is my health we are talking about. I have other tasks I am better suited to do than wander through a field I had zero training in. I approach my cardiology issues the same way.

Re: Night of the living brain fog dead or how I hacked myself better via open source

#80
Open source is not how we got here. We now reap the benefits of centuries of well organized publicly funded research and private for profit business activities. We should not misunderstand or misconstrue history.

What technology and advancement has open source really given us, that isn't just piracy when it comes right down to it? I realize I am asking a selection of would-be pirates. Genuine question.

We skim the cream off the top and tend to take all the credit.

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