It really gives me a chuckle when I read or hear a description of the three types of sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea – doctors do not have a clue as to what this means other than in their minds they think their patient is just a fatty and all its associations. If you have sleep apnea the central nervous system has to be involved. Certainly being obese will make the problem worse, but the origin of breath is from our automatic response to live as controlled by the nervous systems. Apnea during sleep means that you stop breathing long enough to cause a drop in the amount of oxygen in your blood to a level that is too low to sustain the body functions.
When you sleep, the body functions slow down. By design, carbon dioxide builds up in your blood. Yes, that is the same stuff that your government wants to regulate to prevent ‘global warming’. Stop breathing, you are heating the planet up – you dirty polluter. Sorry, did not mean to get side tracked. As your body relaxes, breath rate slows and the amount of blood oxygen saturation drops. This saturation is measured from complete saturation of one hundred percent. When awake this level of saturation is typically above ninety eight percent. When you sleep, it is normal for the saturation to drop into the low nineties or ninety-one to ninety-three percent. When the level drops below seventy percent, organ death begins to occur.
During an apnea event, the body begins to arouse because of the need for more oxygen. It automatically causes your heart to start beating faster because the demand for oxygen has increased throughout the body. This event is very similar to when you exert yourself and the demand from oxygen causes your heart rate to increase. You may awake to find yourself gasping for breath and your heart is racing. The body’s oxygen requirement gets satisfied and you relax again.
So how do you know if you have sleep apnea or if it has gotten better? There are many levels of sleep disturbance. Apnea is distinguished from the rest of the disorders by this drop in oxygen. Do not get me wrong as I am not diminishing other sleep disorders. Restful sleep is extremely important to allow our bodies to repair. To determine if you have a disorder that includes apnea, a polysomnogram or sleep study is required. This is when you are connected to monitoring that includes the various metrics of your body.
You have sleep apnea and are using a CPAP to control the amount of oxygen intake. You increase your vitamin D and magnesium to allow your body to heal. A simple method to determine if you are healing or if your blood has enough oxygen is a device called a pulse oximeter. This device fits onto your hand or arm and measures both the heart rate and oxygen saturation. Sometimes, you are asked to wear this device at home before or instead of a sleep test. It is also a good device to help you decide if you can stop wearing your CPAP.
That is exactly what I did to determine if my sleep apnea had reversed itself. I felt like I did not need the CPAP any longer, but my doctor insisted that if I stopped wearing it the issues would return. I did not want the expense or nuisance of doing a sleep study. I found a pulse oximeter and used it for three months while not wearing the CPAP. I set the alarms to wake me when my oxygen rate dropped below eighty five percent or my heart rate got above 90 or below 50. The use of this device at home should be discussed with your doctor.
In a recent review on availability, I was amazed at how easy these pulse oximeters are to obtain. Six years ago, I had to order from a medical supply and the cost was over three hundred dollars. Now these devices are available at drugs stores. They range in price from about fifty dollars to two hundred fifty. I noticed one popular brand and model was about eighty dollars at CVS to one hundred fifteen at Walmart. It had enough memory to store events for up to seventy two hours with software and cable so that the data could be transferred to a computer.
The fear of not wearing the CPAP was gone. I did not have to worry about whether my blood oxygen was dropping low enough to damage my organs. That was great relief. It was amazing as I went from dying with blood oxygen below seventy percent to no events without a CPAP. My weight had not changed, my nervous system had healed. I don’t need to know the mechanism of healing, just that I could sleep again without the CPAP. Obstructive sleep apnea – indeed! I love the sun! -Pandemic Survivor
Vitamin D Deficiency Survivor 
Medical experts say that sleep apnea cannot be cure ,then how it is possible in this case?
The experts are wrong. Sleep apnea is caused primarily by compression of the nerves to the lungs in the cervical disc. Improvement of the disc spacing relieves the pressure and the lungs function normally.
I have just been diagnosed with sleep apnea, and I have problems with my neck vertebrae as well. Could this be the cause, and would a Chiropractor be helpful?
“I set the alarms to wake me when my oxygen rate dropped below eighty five percent or my heart rate got above 90 or below 50. The use of this device at home should be discussed with your doctor.”
There is a lot that is wrong here.
85% oxygen is still enough to cause damage to you so you’re still gradually wearing away at your body every night. And if your oxygen levels are dropping to 85% that has to mean you have some sort of obstruction going on for it to be dipping that low in the first place. And the only reason it stays at 85% is because this alarm wakes you up so it could actually be wanting to dip down much further. So you’re also wrong about you not having apnea events anymore. Your sleep apnea is not cured.
And you’re being woken up every single time your oxygen and heart rate rate messes up? That means that you are waking up multiple times during the night every night because the CPAP isn’t there anymore. So your quality of sleep is being absolutely destroyed by this by being interrupted by this alarm all the time. Having sleep disturbed like that every night by the alarm is really bad for you.
Its been years since you posted this so seriously go see a doctor. You still have sleep apnea and you need to get back on that machine. With that machine you can sleep through the entire night which gives way better sleep quality and your oxygen levels would be higher than they are now. This would lead to better sleep and a much better life.
John,
You must be a doctor that was never trained in the use of nutritional health or perhaps a representative of the CPAP industry. Last month I was concerned that I had not recently measured my pulse and SpO2 during sleep. I purchased a Contec CMS 50+ pulse oximeter. It records the data for up to 24 hours. I slept with the unit on my finger for 8 hours. I then downloaded the data to my computer. It gives a high quality graph of both SpO2 and pulse rate as well as records any events outside the setup parameters. I had one event when my SpO2 was less than 88% for the time of 0.1 minutes. My pulse rate dropped in the mid-50s during an hour and one half of deep sleep and my SpO2 was stable at 91 to 92 during this period. This is so much different from when I had my polysomnography. I would breathe for thirty seconds and then hold my breathe for thirty seconds. I had sixty events per hour. The test was stopped after an hour and I was put on a CPAP. I finally convinced my doctor to share the SpO2 when the test was stopped. I was down in the mid-60s or near death. I share my sleep data every year at my physical with my doctor, and like you, he is amazed. He is also amazed that I don’t have to take any drugs because I am so ancient.
I would suggest that you go to Dr Gominak’s site, a neurologist and watch her videos. http://drgominak.com/videos.html
Thanks for reading and your concern for me.
Mark
Hi,
88% is far too low. 92% is a common cutoff for apnea events. Generally SPO2 levels should be 95% or above.
dan,
SPO2 levels should be above 95% when you are awake.
Thanks for your great information, the contents are quiet interesting. I will be waiting for your next post.
This is a great story. But I would suggest getting a sleep study to confirm. I have sleep apnea with an AHI of 21 and my oxygen levels never dropped below 92%. The doctor says my lungs are very strong and that it’s due to a lifetime of exercising. The oxygen level alone cannot measure the apneas but it’s definitely a great sign. As for myself, I am on month 3 with cpap, 1 month on vitamin d (my levels were at 15), and no alcohol for 3+months.
Al,
Normal oxygen levels during sleep are acceptable all the way down to 90%. Typical is about 92-95% during sleep. I would get a second opinion about the sleep apnea because you could have neurological problems or hormonal issues with your adrenal glands. See a neurologist and/or an endocrinologist. Since your vitamin D level is so low, it is most likely neurological. As Dr. Grominic explained, it is the combination of vitamin D and magnesium. Watch her videos linked from the other post on sleep apnea. She suggest a level for serum vitamin D between 60 to 80 ng/ml for best results.
Mark
It’s uplifting to hear of someone getting over sleep apnea. I’m normal weight but health problems including apnea started after an intestinal infection and subsequent vitamin deficiencies. It does seem like a nervous system problem. Thanks for posting!
Thanks for posting! I’m always checking for updates on your site. It is so wonderful you have been healed of the apnea affliction. I’m praying that I too will find relief someday. Thanks for taking the time to update your blog.
John