221–230 of 282 posts
Radical dietary change can lead to huge differences in experiential quality of life and sleep as well. Chronic dietary inflammation (which just means foods that your body doesn't like) can have a whole host of subtle effects you would never notice until they are absent.
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This may sound crazy, but for those who can't tolerate a CPAP, an effective alternative is playing the didgeridoo.[1] Anecdotally my wife and kids were complaining about my snoring, and I bought one for $40 off Amazon. Not only has my snoring improved, but my lung capacity has improved. Plus it's just fun to play. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1360393/
Which one did you get?
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Meinl-Percussion-DDG1-BK-Didgeridoo-P...
I have heart issues (had a stent 2 years ago - early for my age) and have always slept poorly (mostly bad habits + diet). Sleep routine is the most essential thing to fix if you have resolved all your basic needs. It creates a feedback loop that helps to reduce stress and improve health. I've learned this the hard way - you shouldn't have to.
> Sleep routine is the most essential thing to fix if you have resolved all your basic needs. It creates a feedback loop that helps to reduce stress and improve health. How did you fix it? I suffer from asthma and frequent urination issues, both of which wake me up several times a night. It doesn't seem to matter much what my routines before sleep and after waking are if I am involuntary woken during sleep, and I'm s…
See earlier comments on CPAP machines.
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Please go see a sleep doctor, not a GP. I was diagnosed in my late 30s, and I was definitely not overweight at the time. In retrospect, many things that I thought were normal (or even positive) turned out to be very clear symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation.
I'm super curious - what were symptoms of your sleep deprivation that you took to be positive qualities?
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I did this pretty regularly and when a routine blood test showed my serum vitamin D at the top of the range, I was told to lay off the daily 5000 IU vitamin D, there is indeed such a thing as too much.
What was the impact of being in top of the range? Were you noticing something adverse?
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In my experience this is actually rare. I've heard many similar stories to mine here from friends and family, but briefly, my own recent experience with this kind of thing: I saw four doctors across two states trying to resolve a certain medical condition, which happens to be very common, has very negative effects, and has low recovery rates. They prescribed a couple different medications, and mentioned that the diso…
Its not actually less useful, because typically very few people follow through on lifestyle improvements. When I went through medical school they did not skip this -- we were all taught well how much of an impact lifestyle change would affect outcomes across various diseases, and even then how little change was required (e.g. 10 lbs lost makes a drastic difference for those overweight). There is simply a very low upt…
Slow and steady usually wins the race, but magic bullets pay better.
Look at the rebellion that doctor started in New York, with his youtube videos about how futile and absurd it was to ventilate lucid/non-distressed SARS-CoV-2 patients, solely on the basis of their oxygen saturation meter readings. Later reports from the front line said 'hey we're doing much better not ventilating our COVID-19 patients even when their oxygen saturations are super-low...'
> and even then, a large percentage who reject it outright (e.g. the number of people who reject that calories are the primary determinant of weight).
/methinks it is simplistic and wrong to decree that a calorie is a calorie.
My working hypothesis is that bad medical advice is the primary etiological factor behind most cases of morbid obesity. Decades ago the medical industry decreed saturated fats as the cause of heart disease, and advocated fat-free diets, or low-saturated-fat diets failing that.
Butter has been vindicated of the charges against it, but I have yet to see an official apology for giving bad advice. Indeed, the heart profiteers are still [1] flogging a dead horse [2].
My retired-MD uncle recently came to visit, and shared that he now makes his own salad dressing to avoid the cheap oils in commercial salad dressings. He had some great stories of patients he'd helped (trauma from car accidents and knifings), but also of exercises in medical futility (e.g. cancer).
Why doesn't conventional medicine warn patients of the hazards of cheap oils? Now is the perfect time. You could refer to Wikipedia's article on Prostaglandins [0], and speculate that minority America's overconsumption of Omega-6 oils is one factor in their susceptibility to the SARS-CoV-2 (emotional stress is another factor).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostaglandin
[1] https://www.heart.org/en/news/2018/05/01/advisory-replacing-...
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Yes, fixing out the lung capacity, musculature of the diaphragm, throat, tongue, etc is really the cure. And loosing excess weight if that is the case. CPAP, while effective and life changing is a band aid that the medical industry can make money on. I don't hear anyone saying that the CPAP should be used in conjunction with restorative exercises. I'm glad you found this solution.
Sacrificed months of productivity to fast off 70 pounds in hope it would fix sleep apnea. It didn't.
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What measurement of lung capacity? That's pretty awesome and maybe I should look into it haha.
Any measurement you like: volume of air, duration I can hold my breath, and most relevantly, how quickly I get "winded". There are specific swimming exercises you can do, as part of a routine, that build lung capacity. (Results may not generalize. It worked for me.)
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That said, it's not always a magic bullet. I got a cpap after a sleep study found I had 80+ breathing interruptions in the short overnight test window. It easily brought them down to The value is absolutely there in the greatly reduced likelihood of death in my sleep, and the white noise is better than snoring when sleeping around others. But I wouldn't want to get people's hopes up about it providing them the bad sl…
Read forums http://www.cpaptalk.com/CPAP-Sleep-Apnea-Forum.html and http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Forum-Main-Apnea-Board-Foru... often CPAP requires fine tuning with most doctors can't be arsed to do. Get OSCAR software it will help you fine tune the CPAP settings. https://www.sleepfiles.com/OSCAR/ Often people are given the cheapest CPAP machines that won't auto-adjust themselves. Guess what, at least for Medicar…
Medicare is not "for all" yet, so a lot of people won't be helped by this.
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What was the damage, do you mind sharing?
A wallet so full of cash it was causing backaches sitting on it.
I'm being totally serious here. If you carry a wallet around in the back pocket of your trousers/pants/jeans whatever, and it's full of junk - even if it's not - and you have chronic back pain, stop doing that! Put it in your front pocket or jacket. Anywhere. I assure you, it's very likely to be causing problems for your lower back.
As a test, just switch the wallet to the other side and sit down. It will either feel great or hurt immediately.