Molly: CPAP Babe of the Week for June 9th, 2017
| What is your name?: | Molly |
| Where are you from?: | New Jersey, just moved to Michigan |
| Tell us about why you use CPAP and how you got diagnosed.: | I was initially diagnosed with sleep apnea when I was 17, but it was so mild my old insurance wouldn’t cover treatment. I went years knowing I had sleep apnea with no idea how bad it actually was as I aged. I was retested in 2014, which was followed by a sleep study with a CPAP trial in 2015. I was then diagnosed and began treatment. I have a complicated relationship with my CPAP because I was diagnosed with Narcolepsy with Cataplexy a year later when I returned to the sleep medicine world frustrated that I still felt like I was dying every day even though I was religiously using the machine. I continue to use it because when you have narcolepsy you want to eliminate as many causes of fatigue as possible, sometimes incrementally. Narcolepsy at its baseline is to live like a healthy person who has gone 48 to 72 hours without sleep. Not making little improvements, such as addressing my apnea, would only make that sleepiness so much worse. |
| What do you LOVE about CPAP treatment?: | I love that on nights where my Narcolepsy isn’t making me wake up every few moments and messing with everything, the machine really does get a chance to shine and make a difference. |
| Any advice for other CPAP Babes?: | Keep at it. Even though it’s such a tiny piece of my puzzle, it’s worth it every day. Sleep is so complicated and I advocate fixing as many variables as you can to achieve adequate and real sleep, big or small. Unaddressed sleep disorders can truly destroy your health and can and will negatively impact other aspects of your health. |
From Stacy (Founder, CPAPBabes.com) Molly has some great advice here. It can be incredibly hard to be using CPAP religiously and not feeling better. Personally, I have a secondary sleep disorder as well (idiopathic hypersomnia) and other factors that keep me fatigued some days. Though fatigue sucks, being consistent with sleep apnea treatment helps with SO many different areas of your health in addition to fatigue – your heart health, your thyroid, your blood sugar…you get the point!
Lots of love to y’all with narcolepsy and cataplexy. I have family members who live with it and it’s very difficult to manage.
Thanks so much for your submission Molly! I loved hearing your story.
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