My name is Leonard C. Hyater, Jr. On June 6, at 5 p.m., I came in for a sleep test for my sleep apnea. About two hours later the sleep technician came into my room and said to me, “Mr. Hyater, I am going to put you on a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine. You stopped breathing while asleep.”
That scared the living hell out of me.
Now, what is sleep apnea?
Sleep apnea is a potentially serious sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts. You may have sleep apnea if you snore loudly and you feel tired even after a full night’s sleep.
There are two main types of sleep apnea: obstructive sleep apnea, a more common form that occurs when throat muscles relax; or central sleep apnea, which occurs when your brain doesn’t send proper signals to the muscles that control breathing.
The reason I am writing this is because when I was told that I stopped breathing while I was asleep, I realized that this sleep apnea is no joke. For those that have sleep apnea, please get on a sleep test. It could improve your life.
