Before getting married, my husband said he would snore when he slept and once scared away colleagues who lived in a room.
At that time, I didn't think so, because every time he slept, he would put up with it until I fell asleep, plus I slept very deeply, and I didn't wake up when I thundered, so I hardly noticed that he was snoring.
I sneaked out my phone
Purring was measured in excess of 80 dB
After getting married, I would occasionally stay up late and sleep later than he did, which was when I could clearly hear him snoring. I also found that an hour or two after he fell asleep, he would start to have apnea, that is, snoring, and suddenly he didn't breathe.
Looking closer, I saw that there would be a slight up and down vibration in his chest, but there was no obvious and slow rise and fall like normal breathing, and the sound of air flow could not be heard. It was as if he had been choked by the neck and tried to inhale, but he couldn't.
I watched quietly from the side for a while, not knowing how long it had been before he finally took this breath, and then took several rapid breaths, trying to replenish the oxygen he had just owed, while his body twisted in pain.
Husband this phenomenon of apnea recurred, a few snoring, just pause once, a few more beats, another pause... Not only that, but in between snoring, he grinds his teeth. In the dead of night, I listened to the "gritted teeth" clucking and purring in my ears, and I really wanted to give him a slap!
In the four years of marriage, his purring became louder and longer, and his breathing pause became longer and longer. In the beginning, when I went to bed late, I could still sleep with his purring sound, and it could even be said that when he was not grinding his teeth, the sound was a lullaby that could help me fall asleep.
But as his purring became more and more severe, I couldn't calm down. The loud purring sound, in the dead of night, was like a fighter jet flying in my ear. I once secretly used the software that measured the decibels of sound on my phone and measured that his purring was more than 80 decibels.
When I couldn't stand it or he stopped breathing, I pushed him hard to get him back to normal breathing. But it was quiet for a few seconds, the noise started again, and I could only continue to push him... Every time I lose sleep, I repeat this many times and end up sleeping in a daze.
Sometimes he was woken up by me and I said, "You snore too loud!" He would answer blankly, "Huh? I didn't snore! Then he turned around and continued to exhale. I just thought it was amazing! Why do snorers always fail to hear their own noise and are rarely woken up by themselves?
However, every time he was woken up by me, he never got angry, sometimes he saw that I was irritable because he was noisy, and he would sit up and hold on for a while, and then he would continue to sleep when I fell asleep.
When sleeping on his side, my husband's purring and apnea were noticeably relieved, so every night he would lie on his side with his back to me and stay almost like this all night.
For the last two years, I could only try to go to bed earlier than him to avoid being disturbed, and he also tried to cater to my time, than I did at night in bed. We slept with our son, who was over a year old, but probably used to his dad's purring since he was a child, and his sleep was not affected at all.
Severe apnea
He was frightened when he heard the ventilator
In addition to affecting my sleep, snoring also had some effect on his own life, the most obvious being that because of his open mouth and breathing, every morning when he got up, his throat and eyes would feel very dry, as if he was covered with layers of things. So every morning after brushing his teeth, he had to cough and vomit at the sink for half a day, and finally coughed up a mouthful of stinky phlegm, which was comfortable.
In other aspects, he personally felt that it had little impact, but he had to take a nap during the day, and if he didn't sleep in the afternoon, his brain would not move.
But aside from the discomfort he could feel on his own, my biggest concern was that snoring would affect his health. Studies have shown that sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, and some patients with refractory hypertension are also associated with poor blood pressure control.
In fact, when I first found out that he had apnea, I suggested that he do a polysomnography monitor, but he always felt that he was not serious and kept dragging it out. I wore my lips out, and finally coaxed him to do the test.
I don't remember the specific value of the test results, but I remember that he was in sleep, the average number of apnea and hypopnea per hour exceeded 50 times, and the blood oxygen saturation was as low as about 70%, and finally diagnosed as severe obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome.
Oh, I didn't expect it to be quite serious! My husband is fat, with a short neck and a short chin, and people of this size are prone to obstructive snoring and apnea, and the best treatment is often a non-invasive ventilator.
But the husband was shocked when he heard the ventilator, and thought it was the kind in the intensive care unit of the hospital, inserting a thick tube from the mouth of the person into the trachea, and then there was a large machine next to the bed blowing through the tube, so he refused one after another.
As soon as I listened to the music, I explained to him: "The kind you are talking about is an invasive ventilator, I am talking about a non-invasive ventilator, that is, when you sleep, you wear a nose mask, and then connect the machine to blow the air, so that the airway can be smooth, and you will not stop breathing and gasping." ”
He still refused after listening, stubbornly thinking that it was uncomfortable to sleep with a hood. I said to contact him first to contact the salesperson who sells ventilators, let him try it on for a few days, and then buy it if he thinks it is acceptable, he also disagrees, and firmly believes that he snores because he is fat, and it is good to lose weight and lose weight.
Saying that I can't move him, I can't force it, and I can only hope that he will be better off when he loses weight. But two years later, he not only lost more and more weight, but also purred louder and louder. During this time I repeatedly suggested that he try the ventilator, but they were ruthlessly rejected...
And "nasal congestion"? Try it!
In fact, my husband snored, and compared with my father-in-law, he was still a little witch. Once, because my father-in-law was snoring too loudly, my next-door neighbor banged on the wall in the middle of the night. He was woken up, and the next day he asked people why they knocked on the wall in the middle of the night, and the neighbor's uncle said very grumpily: "Big brother, your purr penetration is too strong!" ”
According to the mother-in-law's description, the father-in-law often snored and often had apnea, and his expression was "vicious", and sometimes his lips would be purple. He often had no energy during the day and had to take a nap every now and then. My father-in-law himself has bought various "folk remedies" for snoring on the Internet, but they are useless.
I kept thinking about letting them both try on the ventilator, so I thought about finding out if anyone around me was using it and showing up to say it.
It just so happened that a colleague said that he had a sleep breath monitor a few years ago, and when he slept at night, his blood oxygen saturation was as low as 33%, and the longest apnea time was more than two minutes. Later, he once tried to bury his face in the basin of water and hold his breath for so long!
And at that time, no matter how long he slept at night, he always felt groggy the next day. Later, under the advice of the doctor, he used a non-invasive ventilator, and his spirits became significantly better the next day, even if he slept shorter at night, he no longer felt dizzy and bloated.
The ventilator he used was the kind of nasal plug, not like the nose mask that looked flustered. As soon as I heard the spirit, I came home at night and told my husband about it, and he finally agreed to try it!
The husband "transformed" into the second king on the Lion Hump Ridge
My world was finally quiet
After determining that my husband did not have contraindications to a noninvasive ventilator, the next day, I contacted the sales staff of the ventilator, deposited 2000, and rented a trial machine. The machine is 23.5 cm long and 13.5 cm wide, and there is a transparent water tank on the right side for water to humidify the air.
The trial machine is equipped with three types of snorkels, two nose masks of different sizes, and a nasal plug, which we can choose according to our needs.
I was stunned to see the nasal congestion. In fact, the official name of "nasal congestion" is called the nose pillow, I thought it was as fine and soft as the oxygen tube used for oxygen in the hospital, but I did not expect it to be like this in the picture below.
The upper picture is the nose mask, and the bottom picture is the nose pillow | Courtesy of the author
Nasal pillow | Courtesy of the author
I fiddled with the trial machine curiously. This machine is fully automatic, many parameters have been set, set a ventilation pressure range, and then press the start, you can automatically adjust in this pressure range.
Its working mode is a single-channel continuous positive airway pressure ventilation (CPAP mode), that is, it will continue to blow at a set pressure, and it has nothing to do with time, whether there is spontaneous breathing, etc.
I tried to put it on a bit and felt uncomfortable with the exhalation. Maybe because I have rhinitis, my breathing is not very smooth, and the air flow when exhaling will collide with the air flow of the machine blowing into the nose, and the exhalation is more laborious.
However, after the husband wore it, he did not feel uncomfortable. Seeing him sitting there trying it on, I was immediately happy. Because whether it is a nose pillow or a nose mask, after wearing it, a very thick tube is connected in front of the nose for ventilation, which looks like the big nose of the two kings of the white elephant on the Lion Hump Ridge in "Journey to the West".
The white elephant of the second king of Shi huoling | Journey to the West
At night, he deliberately went to bed early, and I went into the bedroom more than half an hour later. I saw my husband wearing a nose pillow, lying quietly on the bed, without playing with his mobile phone and without making a sound. I thought he was brewing sleepiness, so I crept into bed and lay down for a while, I found that he had not changed his position for half a day, and when I looked closely, I found that people had long been asleep!
Except for the slight airflow sound of the ventilator, there was really no purring at all. That's a great effect! The husband changed from the original purring "Thunder Gong" to a quiet "little sheep", and it was still in his flat bed.
I held back to sleep for more than an hour, only to hear a slight pause in his breathing, only for a few seconds. I fell asleep with joy and joy.
The next morning, my husband said that wearing a ventilator did not affect falling asleep at all, and fell asleep after a while, and slept until about 5:30 in the morning. When he woke up, he felt that the airflow in his nose was a little large, and the straps on both sides were also a little uncomfortable, so he turned off the machine.
When he woke up in the morning, his original dry mouth was almost gone, and he didn't cough and vomit after brushing his teeth. Overall it was satisfactory, the only thing that felt a little uncomfortable was that the nose would be slightly dry, but within the range that could bear it.
He said he had to clean his nose before using the ventilator every time, or the snot would have to be blown dry, haha.
The next day, my husband tried on a nasal mask, and we adjusted the ventilator pressure range of the ventilator. According to him, the pressure of the airflow is acceptable, but it feels a little flustered around the nose, which is not as comfortable as the nose pillow.
Later, we tried to further reduce the upper pressure limit, and after my husband put it on to sleep, I could clearly hear his purring and apnea, but the sound was much smaller than not wearing it. Ventilation pressure varies from person to person, and it seems that it is still necessary to find a professional doctor to adjust to a degree that is suitable for individuals to achieve the best results.
What's more amazing is that after putting on the ventilator for a while, occasionally one day without wearing it, the husband's purring will not be as loud as before.
What makes me even happier is that he has a better problem grinding his teeth when he sleeps! I finally don't have to listen to the scratching, stone-scratching noise in the middle of the night!
Doctor reviews
Liu Shaofeng | Deputy Chief Physician of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center
First of all, it must be praised by the author of this article, her observation of her husband's sleep state is meticulous, which leads to concerns, self-examination of the suspected diagnosis and harm of sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome, and thus seek professional ventilator treatment, this wave of operations is comparable to professional otolaryngologists.
After that, the author tirelessly persuaded her husband and father-in-law, and finally let her husband put on a ventilator for treatment, which greatly improved his health. Husband and wife duo tolerate each other's troubles caused by snoring, and show affection and respect for each other, which makes people admire, this wave of dog food, please do it together!
Ventilators, divided into invasive ventilators and non-invasive ventilators, invasive ventilators refer to special fields such as hospital ICUs and operating rooms, and assist breathing through endotracheal intubation or tracheostomy. The non-invasive ventilator is the ventilator mentioned in the text, and the more accurate name is the non-invasive positive pressure ventilator, which does not require auxiliary breathing through endotracheal intubation or tracheostomy, and the fuselage is small, can be used at home, and even travel can be carried in the suitcase.
Noninvasive ventilators can be applied to many diseases, such as obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (the hero of this article is this disease), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiogenic pulmonary edema and so on.
For the obstructive sleep apnea syndrome that is widely used in ventilators, the treatment principle is to connect the ventilator with the user through the nasal mask or mask, etc., and the air is formed by the machine to form a certain pressure, filtered, heated, humidified, and then entered into the oropharyngeal cavity, supporting the collapsed or blocked respiratory tract and allowing the air flow to flow smoothly in and out.
In this way, the purring is naturally eliminated, and more fundamentally, it solves the hypoxic state caused by the patient's breath holding during sleep, corrects the disordered sleep structure, so as to restore good sleep, energy, memory, and attention will also be improved, and long-term adherence to use can reduce the risk of complications such as accompanying hypertension, hyperglycemia, coronary heart disease, stroke, and cor pulmonale.
Household non-invasive ventilator through the nose (nasal plug) cover, mask to connect people and ventilator, according to the comfort of different people to choose different connection methods, generally divided into single horizontal mode and double horizontal mode, according to the severity of sleep apnea monitoring results, there are no complications to determine different modes, but also to choose the appropriate pressure, the most accurate way is to find a professional doctor in the sleep center for pressure titration, in order to obtain accurate pressure data, to achieve the best treatment effect.
Due to the need to wear a nose mask or mask to sleep, many people are not very suitable for this treatment mode at first, and even psychologically resist treatment, so they need to have a correct and full understanding of the ventilator and the gradual adaptation process of the ventilator treatment mode.
Finally, it is reminded that any single mode of treatment is not a panacea, the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is also a comprehensive treatment, in addition to deciding whether to wear a ventilator under the guidance of a professional doctor, but also to establish a good lifestyle, obese people to lose weight appropriately, strengthen exercise, quit smoking and alcohol and so on.
Sharing personal experience does not constitute a diagnosis and treatment recommendation, can not replace the doctor's individual judgment of a specific patient, if you need to go to a regular hospital.
Author: Ziyi
Editors: Chen Xinyu, Dai Tianyi