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Do you snore? Get tested for sleep apnea.
I (used to) snore. Loudly. One time, when I fell asleep before Arb, he took his phone and recorded me snoring, then played it back in my ear until it woke me up. It was ghastly.
I also used to be incredibly tired all the time, and just about never woke up feeling like I’d gotten enough sleep. Most days I felt like I needed a nap, but then the nap wasn’t awfully helpful either. I assumed it was either the remaining depression symptom that my meds just couldn’t help, or else a medication side effect that was worth living with because it beats the hell out of being suicidal.
Arb had been after me for years to do something to treat my snoring, as much for his comfort as mine. I was resistant – not for any good reason, just stubborn. I didn’t want to have to wear one of those Darth Vader mask machines. I didn’t want another chronic illness diagnosis. I didn’t want to be told losing weight would cure it all, when I’ve snored since I was a medium sized, very active teenager.
This summer I finally gave in and got tested for sleep apnea. The link says people with sleep apnea may stop breathing as many as 30 times an hour – the night I was tested, I stopped breathing an average of 47 times an hour (not sure when I actually was breathing), and my blood oxygen saturation was dipping into the low 80%s. That freaked me the hell out, and I agreed to do a trial with a CPAP machine – the dreaded Darth Vader mask.
The first night with the machine, I had a hell of a time getting comfortable. I think I slept two or three hours at the most. And I woke up… feeling rested! It was the weirdest feeling: the thought of getting out of bed didn’t make me want to cry; I was ready to get up and face the day. And that day, I did ALL THE THINGS, without needing a nap.
The next night I slept six hours, and woke up feeling great in the morning again, with no tiredness-hangover from having done all the things the day before. So I got up and did all the things again. And again and again and again. It’s literally been that kind of night and day change. It seems some very large percentage of what I thought was pure laziness, was actually due to untreated sleep apnea.
I will disclose up front, using a CPAP machine is not all kittens and roses. Or maybe it is, complete with claws and thorns:
- You pretty much have to sleep on your back for the mask to seal properly against your skin, which takes some getting used to
- If the seal breaks during the night, you’re woken up by your whole face blowing a raspberry
- The mask and hose make it awkward to fall asleep in your partner’s arms (but hey, your partner won’t be driven to the sofa by your snores; it’s a trade-off)
On the other hand, besides giving you crappy sleep and pissing off your partner, sleep apnea can:
- increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, obesity, and diabetes
- increase the risk of heart failure, or if you have heart failure, make it worse
- put you at increased risk of motor vehicle and workplace accidents
- may be linked with depression, though causation has not been established
- in rare cases, it can kill you directly
In conclusion, gentle readers, again I urge you, if you snore, or if you are tired all the time and don’t know why, or especially if you have both those symptoms, go get tested for sleep apnea. I’m telling everybody who will listen in hopes that somebody else can be helped as much as I have been.
As I’ve written previously, The Fashion and I don’t get along. The last time I focused on how The Fashion aims primarily to destroy your self-image in order to then save it in exchange for your money. Today let’s look at one of the many ways The Fashion is willing to sacrifice your health to line it’s pockets. The insidious high heeled shoe.
I’ve never liked high heels. On anyone. That is not to say that my objection to high heels, nor this post, is born out of some subjective style preference of mine. You could dress in a fuchsia burlap sack with eye holes for all I care and I’d never write about it. No, the problem with heels is far beyond mere opinion or particular taste. They are inherently evil and should be discarded by all. The elimination of the high heel will bring about a happier healthier world.
Lets talk practicality. No, it’s more basic than that. Let’s talk purpose and meaning. Why do we have shoes at all? Walking barefoot out in the world comes with many hazards. There are sharp pokey bits everywhere. There are unpleasantly cold and wet environments. There is dirt and filth and all manor of disgusting grossness that will instantly defile any bare skin it comes in contact with. Footwear’s primary purpose is to protect our feet from a world of dangers. Further, a good pair of shoes allow us to accomplish more foot based activity than we could do otherwise. They support ankles and arches, pad the foot, and ease the stress of each step. Proper footwear allows us to run faster, to walk farther, to fully realize the potential offered to us by bipedalism. Thus, the quality of a shoe can be determined by how well it protects our foot and how much it empowers our foot-based locomotion. On both these criteria, the high heel fails in spectacular fashion.
Do you know why it is so easy to spot someone who isn’t used to the heels they are wearing? Because heels get a negative score on the ‘making-walking-easier’ metric. They make walking harder, the complete opposite of what shoes are supposed to do. Wherever there is a dance floor, there are people ditching their oh so “fashionable” heels. They risk finding a shard of broken glass with their foot or having their toes accidentally stomped on. Why? Because the possibility of a mangled and injured foot is a small price compared to the certain pain of trying to dance in heels. And there is simply nothing to be done if you suddenly need to run. No matter how you try to use them, high heels are anti-shoes.
And protection? Sure, heels will still allow you to walk across sharp objects without slicing your foot, but they subject the wearer to so many other health risks, you may as well use a rusty chainsaw as a back scratcher. Yeah, the itch is gone, but at what cost?
The following post has a higher than usual amount of profanity (for DWR, anyway). You have been warned.
Eating right is hard. Eating horribly wrong is so very easy. Are we all doomed to clogged arteries, pickled livers, and malnourished obese children? No! Thug Kitchen is here to save us all! What started as an awesome blog is now a cookbook with it’s own trailer!
What makes Thug Kitchen so special? There are lots of health cook books out there, but you may have noticed a slightly unusual tone in the trailer. From the Thug Kitchen FAQ section:
[Thug Kitchen] is here to help your narrow dietary mind explore some goddamn options so that you can look and feel like a fucking champ. We hope readers reconsider what kind of behaviors they attribute to people who try to eat healthy. Everyone deserves to feel a part of our push toward a healthier diet, not just people with disposable incomes who speak a certain way. So we’re here to help cut through the bullshit. Promoting accessibility and community are important as fuck here at Thug Kitchen. We’ve got a big table and everyone is welcome to it.
Busting up stereotypes, promoting a healthier society, inclusion of people at any income level, a healthy dose of humour, fantastic photography, and delicious food, there is so much here to love. I look forward to learning more fantastic things from Thug Kitchen and I can’t thank them enough for what they do.
So now you’ve learned how to eat like you give a fuck. You’re a healthier you and a goddamn champ. You can’t wait to make more of this tasty, cheap, good-for-you food. But part of you figures you deserve a totally bad-for-you reward for all this progress. You’re damn right you do.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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