From my personal experience, it's always best to look after yourself. I was diagnosed with apnea and sold a cpap machine (a great money maker because most of us have to buy the machine out of pocket). For many reasons, I could never get on with the machine and gave up. Fast forward 5 years and I get a watch5 and started monitoring my sleep.
I noticed trends in my SP02 and how they corresponded with how much, what time, and what type of food I ate for dinner, and if I took, or what time I took, an OTC acid reducer (like Prilosec). I took note and started eating an earlier and lighter dinners and taking an acid reducer at an earlier so it kicks in well before I go to bed. My SP02 graph while I sleep now looks normal!
It's really cloudy out there on the web trying to sort through this. The sleep apnea/cpap industry only pulls the parts out of research to supports them (and sells you a cpap machine). It's hard to do a search and get past this. Pay close attention to the source and read vetted papers. The industry is pulling what they want you to hear from the medical papers. These are excerpts from medical papers/studies:
"At least 50% of patients with sleep disturbance seen in primary care practices have comorbid conditions."
"In one study, it was suggested that an increase in weight by 10% could lead to a six-fold increase in OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnea)."
"Compared to those who had never smoked or who had smoked in the past, current smokers were three times as likely to have OSA"
"The prevalence of GERD has been shown about 58-62% of patients with OSA. However, these results may all be confounded by obesity."
It’s clear that there’s a lot of conditions that can confound the results. For an overweight person a cpap may help reduce GERD. Some papers lean that way, but there aren’t any strong statistics to back it up. The industry sites leave out the overweight person part and goes on to how a cpap will help you. Again, keep in mind the source!
it's also clear that a cpap can help if you can get on with it. But isn't that like prescribing aspirin because you keep bumping your head rather than mitigating why you keep bumping your head? I’m an athletic man, low BP, low resting heart, BMI=20, and all I could get out of the sleep clinics is, “keep trying to use the cpap.” NOT ONCE did anyone remotely try and look for an underlying cause or any other method to help me out. It was always just “use the machine.” Which is sad considering that 30-50% of the people stop using their machines. To me, the sleep clinic industry is fraudulent, and people should be made aware of it.
I’m not advocating anyone to not see a medical professional. I did after I figured this out. But you need to look out for your best interest and the medical industry isn’t always going to do that.
