To those of you who have experienced sleep apnea, you know how badly it can affect your day. I began this year on a health decline. I was becoming depressed. My blood pressure was going up (at one point it was 180/128 and 120/80 is considered "normal").

My wife (fiance at the time) prodded me to go to the doctor, which is how I found out about my BP increase. I was prescribed some different medications for the BP and have gone through about 4 different meds for depression/anxiety. My sleep apnea gripped me so fiercely that I was having trouble maintaining focus. As it progressed I became lethargic all the time. It progressed further and lethargy turned into what I can only describe as narcolepsy. This narcolepsy was not fun. I remember watching really action packed fun movies that normally would have kept me on the edge of my seat and I fell asleep instead. Fighting to keep my eyes open and not fall asleep the whole time. Unless I stood up, sleep would inevitably win over my vain attempts at maintaining alertness. This was extremely frustrating to me.

I would frequently wake up at night to urinate and sit awake for fear of sleep. Sleep was the enemy, it drained me. I frequently woke up feeling suffocated and I would sit in a chair beside the bed and nod off. I attepmted to get help from my doctor, but insurance wouldn't cover any cost for the sleep clinic, so I was at a dead end. Finally through some research, my wife found a CPAP machine on Craigslist for an affordable cost and I gave that a try. It did nothing, but make breathing more difficult. It was awkward and it scared me more than it helped. It also made me feel more like I was 71 rather than 31 just because I felt that I needed that damn thing. Symptoms kept being worse. I woke up each day with the worst migraines I've ever had. It was a living hell. Three kids to care for, a masters in the works, and a fruitless job search all added to this hellacious feeling. Then, the swelling began. My feet would frequently double in size. On the final night of swelling, when I decided that I had enough of all of this bull shit, my foot looked like Howie Mandel's glove balloon trick come to life. I wish I had taken a picture to share, because it was so freakishly huge. It scared the ever living shit out of me. On top of that it hurt to touch, walk on, or even rest on the floor.

I began to diet more. Reduce salt. Remove soda pop. Eat more fruits and vegetables. Anything that seemed holistic and healing. I added a "greens" supplement to my diet. This all seemed to help slightly, but my apnea was still there. The swelling had stopped at least. But the waking up to urinate and the headaches continued.

Finally, something clicked that the nurse practitioner at my doctors office had said. She had asked me what position I was sleeping in. "I sleep on my side," I told her. And that was that, she moved on to other thoughts and options. For some reason this thought kept cycling through my head and I decided to check the level of the bed. When I did I discovered that there was a slight downhill lean at the head of the bed. Meaning my head was downhill and my feet were uphill as I slept. This seemed to be a bad thing to me and I started sleeping in the opposite direction. I put my feet at the head of the bed and my head at the foot of the bed. My wife found this to be annoying at first and refused to switch her sleeping position. I persevered despite her disapproval. After a few nights of this (and me being emotive and mentioning that I felt like we were roommates not lovers) she switched and offered some support for my contention. The first morning, I seemed to feel better. I still nodded off a bit, but it was easier to fight. The next morning I felt....well, normal. I was back to homeostasis. This small transition helped me stop the progression of sleep apnea from causing me to have extreme cardiovascular problems. It helped me get my life back. To any of you experiencing symptoms of sleep apnea, please humor me and give this a try. It may just save your life too. At worst, it won't help anything and your significant other may look at you funny for a few days.

Thank you for reading. Have a great day!