A Sleep Apnea Fix?

Folks who have followed me online since the Early Cretaceous Period know that I rarely talk about myself on a personal level. The work? Yeah. Techniques? Sure. Incidents that illustrate the writing life? Absolutely. But me-as-just-me? What I did today, how much I walked (or didn’t), what I had for dinner (replete with photos)? Nope. I love seeing those sorts of posts from other people, but turning the mirror around feels self-indulgent. So I don’t allow it.

I’m going to break that rule today, just once.

Now to the necessary disclaimers:

First: I’m not a doctor, I don’t play one on TV, and my lab coat went missing long ago, but that’s another story for another time.

Second: what follows describes a series of events that are specific to my own experience and may have no relevance to, or usefulness for, any other carbon-based life forms reading this.

Third: anyone who changes their lifestyle or behavior without first discussing it with their physician because of something they read on the internet should never be allowed out of the house without adult supervision.

Fourth: I am not here to sell you anything. I’m not advocating for any product, I get no renumeration for any of this, I’m not on anybody’s payroll, and this post is free to anyone who wants to fly in the face of prior experience and read the damned thing.

Fifth and finally: I don’t know how this works. I don’t know why this works. I only know that it works. At least for me. Whether it will work for anyone else, I have absolutely no idea.

With that out of the way, we proceed.

I have had sleep apnea since at least the mid-‘90s. The problem probably goes back much farther, but that’s when it was first pointed out to me that I stopped breathing in the middle of the night. Several times. Suddenly the morning headaches and fatigue made sense.

Weight wasn’t the issue, as this started up when I was considerably more svelte. The problem stems from having a narrow throat, bone bumps (tori) under my tongue that force it upward, with chronic reflux being the final contributing factor. I never went for any kind of night-time breathing aid because I have a Cask of Amontillado/Premature Burial-level horror of having my face covered when I’m asleep.

I just dealt with it.

For nearly thirty years.

Thirty awful years. Every night. Waking up every few hours. Unable to breathe. Then going back to a sleep riddled with nightmares about not being able to breathe. (Mr. Poe has much to answer for in my life.) It aged me. Like a lot. At my doctor’s request, I did a sleep study and learned that on average I stopped breathing anywhere from ten to twenty times a night, sometimes more.

When the Oura ring came out, and included a sleep oximeter, I bought one to keep track of the problem. Still averaging 10-20 incidents per night.

With no other acceptable option, I just kept going. It is what it is and it was what it was, y’know?

We all gotta die of something, right?

Now: flash forward to early December of last year. When it happened.

I didn’t go looking for it. Like I said, it just…happened.

I was sick as a proverbial dog. (And why is it always a dog? Why not an emu? They don’t look healthy even when they’re fine. I think someone missed a bet on that particular metaphor.) By day two, in addition to all the other joys of the flu, I had become profoundly dehydrated. So before going to bed, I rummaged around in the bathroom cabinet for some rehydration tablets I’d bought ages ago to help get over jetlag. The kind you drop into a glass of water, and it fizzes up like an old fashioned Alka Seltzer. Effervescent, I believe is the term.

I found the last of them, popped one into a glass of water, waited for the bubbles to clear, and sipped it over the course of an hour then went promptly to bed.

The next morning, I was feeling a little better. Even the morning headache was gone. As usual, I checked the Oura ring app to see how I’d fared during the evening. Then I got to the sleep tab.

Not a single apnea incident had been recorded.

I shrugged it off, figured the ring must’ve gotten turned around, or the battery was low. Went about the rest of my day.

Since I felt the rehydration tablet had helped with my symptoms, I took another one that night. Same routine. One full 330 ml bottle of water. One tablet. One hour to sip before bed. Then sleep. Promptly.

The next morning, I checked the sleep app, expecting to see the usual roster of apnea incidents.

Nothing.

So now – because sometimes I’m a little dense – I’m pissed. I assumed that the oximeter wasn’t working, or wasn’t working right, or that there had been a recent update that messed up the main reason I bought the thing in the first place.

Such is life, I thought ruefully, and went about my business.

That night, working late, chasing deadlines, bedtime rolled around and I forgot to take the tab. No big. Crashed out.

That morning, the app showed that the apnea had returned.

Now, I may be dense, but even I can eventually pick up on a pattern.

That night, I went back to the rehydration tab.

Checked the app the next morning. Nothing.

Ditto the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that.

In case there might have been a glitch in the software, I tried a couple of other night-time oximeters.

Same result. Every time.

It is now roughly four months since the first time I used the hydration tablet during the one hour before going to bed. In those four months, I have had only a handful of one-off incidents. The rest of the time, there’s absolutely nothing. 96-98% oxygenation. No sleep interruptions. At all. I’m feeling better, more alert. The headaches are gone. I have more energy. The face looking back at me from the morning mirror is a shade less horrific than usual.

It works. But I have no idea why it works.

I spoke to my doctor about it, but he’s as puzzled as I am.

I did some online research to see if I could figure it out, and came across bits of information that may or may not be relevant. Like how electrolyte imbalances trigger vagal nerve hyperreactivity, which in turn may trigger apnea. And how rehydration reduces laryngeal irritation and makes airways less collapsible. The reason could be in there somewhere, or it may be something else entirely. I have absolutely no idea for sure what’s going on. I only know that it is going on, at least for me.

I didn’t go looking for a fix for sleep apnea.

I just tripped over it.

And to be absolutely, crystal clear: this is not a cure. If I stop using the tablets, then within a day or so I’m right back where I was. At best, it’s a fix, or a workaround.

It may only help in my unique case, and have zero impact on anyone else, especially those whose apnea is the result of greater structural issues.

But I won’t know any of that until I put the information out there to see if anyone else might have an idea about why this is working the way it’s working.

One final point: I have not named the rehydration tablet I’ve been using because these things are pretty much the same in terms of ingredients. None of this is tied to a particular product. But if it helps, here are the ingredients listed on the box, going by the %RI (Reference Intake) so the cumulative number is more than 100: vitamin B12 (40%), vitamin c (48.7%), calcium (1.56%), chloride (15.35%), magnesium (5.33%), potassium (3.85%), sodium (it lists just + under RI but the amount is 180mg).

At risk of repetition, I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice. It’s one person reporting on one anecdotal situation. No one should ever make any changes to their lifestyle or medications without first clearing it with their doctor. I’m putting the information out there to see if anyone can figure out the mechanism for why this has been happening, it is not an endorsement of the process for anyone other than myself.

Please take that disclaimer seriously.

I will sleep better because of it.