Sleeping Sickness

I have been walking through soup most of my adult life. I was born with horrendous allergies, but beyond the terrible reactions I had to chocolate, cats and pollen, what made my particular case all that more annoying was the consistent feeling I had of living underwater. Breathing was simply a labor-intensive enterprise; I was exhausted all the time.

In my mid-30s I gave up on Western medicine, which had never really helped me, and began seeing an acupuncturist-herbologist. In no time this drippy-throated, "soupy" body of mine felt better. In fact, if I was vigilant with my diet (like a lot of people I seem to be very susceptible to gluten, which caused an increase in postnasal drip, dried out my throat and made me lethargic) and kept up with the herbs, I could pretty much keep things at bay. So I stayed off the white stuff--flour, potatoes and other refined sugars--and took my dandelion root and licorice, which helped to maintain good flora and dry out mucus. Still, that allergy tsunami was always just up around the bend. Any slip-up--eating a nice dinner roll or visiting too long in a house with a cat--could put me into tailspin, but mainly through the Chinese medicine and good diet I kept things pretty even.

But I was still tired. In fact, I was getting more exhausted as I got older, to the point of feeling debilitated. The weight I was gaining (and trying so desperately to shed with regular karate classes), my already slightly cynical moods and the regular colds I suffered through, all increased as I reached my mid-40s. True, I wasn't showing signs of those old allergy symptoms, but I still felt like every day was an uphill climb through a swampy ennui only I could discern.

I did consider all those "newer" maladies like Epstein-Barr and fibromyalgia, to name a few, but through testing I found I didn't have any of these (as best modern medicine can determine their existence) and my biannual physical always indicated I was in excellent health--despite the feeling of fatigue.

Then I read about sleep apnea.

I treaded carefully however. I know the Internet is a wonderful communication and learning tool, but it can be abused by anyone with a desire for self-diagnosis. What are the symptoms of sleep apnea? Exhaustion during the day, added weight gain, memory loss, snoring (though I live alone so I couldn't be sure about this one) and mood swings were the ones I knew well. The worst aspect is that a person stops breathing while sleeping--this is a called an apnea "episode"--and if there are enough of these, sleep sufferers will never enjoy a deep restorative slumber, woken up as they are when they stop breathing, just on the cusp of a truly deep sleep.

In November, I was tested for apnea with a two-night sleeping test, though I use the word "sleeping" lightly, trying as I did to sleep in the lab while wires were attached to my skull, face, chest and thighs. It was determined that I have a pretty darn good case of apnea. In fact, my doctor was surprised I had dealt with apnea for as long as I did (nearly two decades) and had not suffered some of the more serious side effects many sufferers seem to display (high blood pressure, etc). Of course I suffered plenty in "underwater" living, but I had simply attributed the feeling of malaise to my highly allergic body.