What do you do when your husband has been diagnosed with sleep apnea and won't use the machine?
Sunday, July 25th, 2010 at
11:39 am
My husband has sleep apnea and will not use the machine. He also has diabetes. He goes to work, comes home sleeps for about two hours, goes to bed at 12:00 AM and gets up about 4:30 for work. On the weekends he will sleep if you let him about 14 hours a day. He would do this during the week but he has to go to work. I just don’t know what to do. I’m very concerned.
Tagged with: Diabetes • Sleep • Sleep Apnea
Filed under: Sleep Apnea
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Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do… You can show him all the information about sleep apnea and its deleterious effects on health, how improved sleep can actually improve diabetes, etc etc, but until he decides to do what he needs to do, he’ll probably just hear it as "nagging" and ignore you even more industriously.
If it gets to be that bad, you could lay down an ultimatum: That if he doesn’t start taking better care of himself, you’ll leave because you can’t stand to watch him take such risks with his health. I would certainly not recommend that, unless the marriage is already irretrievably broken and you would actually be okay with it if he said, "All right, bye then."
My sympathies are with you; it’s very frustrating to watch someone you care about neglect themselves. Unfortunately, your options are rather limited. I hope someone else has a more productive answer for you. Good luck.
There is a brand new devise that can be worn inside the mouth like a mouth guard that positions the jaw just slightly forward in such a way that it clears the airway. He might be willing to try this – I’m sorry I don’t recall the name of it but you can google it. The face mask for those sleep apnea machines can be hard to tolerate.
I am on the CPAP machine too. I snore. My husband wanted some sleep. So I look rediculous going to bed. We both go to sleep and he listens to the sound of the machine. I have hearing problems so if something goes wrong he nudges me awake.
Oh, what your husband is missing! I love to sleep but not over sleep anymore. The deep sleep with a blanket reminds me of my younger years! He is definately missing his deep sleep. He needs a follow up to discuss what the problem could be. Consult his sleep therapist/info should be in a folder…He will take off weight if he uses the machine (there is a possiblility) because he is getting proper sleep and energy goes up.
I am glad you are supportive. He may have a problem keeping his mouth shut if he is on a nasal mask only. They came out with a better mask for those of us that just has to breathe through our mouths at night/and it works!
Have him take the machine in to get it adjusted. If you hard to use it makes sleeping even harder.
Make sure he knows how to use it and that he uses the sleep ramp setting on the machine.
Tell me about it. My husband is a veteran and was diagnosed with sleep apnea….has a machine and won’t use. One thing I know is that we sleep in separate rooms, until we are together sexually. I have even told him about his belly. He should get into some kind of gym to exercise…so I will be praying for you and your husband. Keep showing him that you are concern about his hh.ealt
I have sleep apnea also and I’ve been on a CPAP for several years now. It is difficult to get used to the mask, but it is SOOOOO worth it. At first, I would get leaks and it would wake me up and it took me several weeks to get the headgear adjusted so I seldom get leaks now. I have so much more energy, my mood has improved and I’m loving life evety day. I had to go for another sleep stud and found that I can not sleep without it now. I purchased a battery back-up unit that will run the CPAP for 8 hours in case of a power failure.
Someone else said something about noise, my machine hardly makes a sound, my wife can’t hear it from her side of the bed but can if she comes around to my side. The machines are so much better than just a few years ago.
Show him some of the replies you get like this and see if he won’t give it another try.