Hi all,

I was approved for the surgery yesterday but I have to have a sleep study because I snore every night. Did anyone have to do this??? What the heck do they do to you there???/ Help!

:help:

Yes I am in Georgia and they made me do 2 sleep studies. If you are obese & snore you proably have apnea, where you stop breathing so many times a night, it is dangerous & you don't sleep very well. I was mild, I stopped about 10-15 times an hour, my mother stops breathing about 90 times per hour. So there are different levels. I had to go on a breather at night for 3 weeks prior to surgery. The 2nd study was to test the machine and to see just how much extra oxygen you needed to get a good sleep. It worked well getting me to sleep but during the night I was take it off. It seems to be a real pain, but jump through all the hoops they ask & get it done. I have lost 35 pounds, 1/2 before surgery the 1 week of getting ready for liquid diet & then the 2 weeks of liquid and then the rest after being banded on 9/4. I am not even 30 days into the band yet & I love it. It works, just do what they say. I started this process in Dec 06 been dieting for 8 years & maintaining at 290, I am now at 242, I will say just going through the process of being approved & getting there I have lost 50 pounds this year. Good Luck & follow thier instructions to the letter.

P

It was a requirement of my Dr. I found out I have obstructive sleep anpea and now have a cpap machine. They willl hook all kinds of wires up to you and have you spend a night under suoervision. It reads oxy level, type of sleep and a lot of other technical stuff. Good luck, Dave

Hi all,

I was approved for the surgery yesterday but I have to have a sleep study because I snore every night. Did anyone have to do this??? What the heck do they do to you there???/ Help!

:help:

I had to have one, I snored and DH reported that he knew I stopped breathing at times. The idea is that under anethesia, any apnea problem you have can become worse, so they want to know if you have it. They told me to bring my CPAP to the surgery center in case they decided to use it, they didn't have to.

The sleep study was OK. Not my idea of a good time, but not too bad. I went in about 6:30 in the evening, had a little time to kill before they hooked me up. The room was a standard hospital room, but decorated more like a hotel room. They attach wire leads to several places, on your head, face, chest and legs. When you are ready to go to sleep, they plug it in, and run tests to make sure it's working. Then you go to sleep and they observe the readings. Sometimes they will put a cpap mask on you partway through the night, if it's clear you have apnea. They did for me, and it made a big difference in how I felt the next day.

I had it. The other replies were the same for me. What i want to add is that once I started sleeping with the cpap machine, my energy level and focus improved. I didn't realize how little rest I was getting at night until I got a full night with the cpap. I used to wake up 3 times because I thought I had to go to the bathroom. I was really waking up because I had stopped breathing. Now, I sleep all night. I used to wake up tired in the morning and have to drag myself out of bed. After I got the cpap, I wake with no alarm and feel much better. Since surgery (8/30) my husband said even when I don't sleep with the cpap, I don't snore as bad. Do I sound like a commercial? HaHa!

Loving the surgery results! 25 lbs down!

val

I, too, had to have a sleep study, tons of wires attached to head, face, jaw, throat, ect. Not invasive just uncomfortable...the 1st night I couldn't sleep - I was up all night (anxiety and new surroundings) the second night I took an Ambien, they put me on the CPAP and "slept like a baby". Just got my CPAP earlier this month and am getting used to it.

Sleep apnea is the most common complication after anethesia, your doc is being thorough, that's good!

Hi all,

I was approved for the surgery yesterday but I have to have a sleep study because I snore every night. Did anyone have to do this??? What the heck do they do to you there???/ Help!

:help:

It's not a big deal. They hook you hook up so they can record your brain waves while you sleep to see if you have apnea, which is pretty serious because you stop breathing sometimes a lot. If you do, they'll prescribe a CPAP, an apparatus to use at night which will cure the problem and you will sleep so much better. I've done it several times - a bit uncomfortable but really not at all painful.

I've got to have one, too. Mine's scheduled for 10/22. I don't snore, never have, but I do wake up with headaches most mornings. The surgeon wants me to have it done just in case.

I was scheduled to have mine on 10/04, due to a cancellation I was bumped up to 10/01. Wasn't too bad, just lots of wires. Didn't care much for the blue goo that they put on your scalp to attach the leads! Washed out pretty easy with a washcloth and hot water. The technician said I did really well, he didn't notice anything really serious. In at 9:00pm out at 6:20am.

Didn't care much for the blue goo that they put on your scalp to attach the leads!

Aww man, goo in my hair? Seriously? Ew. *lol*

A sleep study is actually not that bad. I say that first as a patient who has been through it twice, and second as a Sleep Tech who performs sleep studies three nights a week.

Electrodes on your head will watch your brain activity to tell if you are awake or asleep and what stage of sleep you are in. Apnea tends to be worse in deeper sleep stages. The wires on your face (by your eyes and on your chin) will also help determine sleep stages by muscle tension, and from the way your eyes move (in REM sleep which is when you dream). Wires on your chest will watch your heart rate/rhythm because when you stop breathing your heart speeds up, works harder since you're not getting oxygen. Remember, any time your brain has to choose between sleep and oxygen, it's going to choose oxygen! Thats why people with apnea never feel rested and are tired all the time, they think they slept all night, but their brain keeps them in light sleep stages where they keep breathing, instead of deeper sleep stages which is when you get your restful sleep.

You will also have sensors or belts around your chest and abdomen to see if you are even trying to breathe, and wires on your legs to look for signs of restless leg syndrome. You will have a camera on you all night. In the lab I work in, we don't actually record the feed from the camera (unless the patient is doing something really weird), its just so we know if they're sleeping ontheir left, right, back, whatever.

CPAP can take some getting used to, but once you do it can seriously be life changing! I have seen many people on this forum say things like "well, since I won't need cpap after I lose weight anyway I'm just not going to use it since I'm banded and losing now". This is not a good idea! In this lap band journey we are all on, we will have more sucess if we are getting good sleep and have the energy to get through our day. I have been on CPAP for about 2 years now, and have no intention of discontinuing it until I am at goal weight and have another sleep study to determine if I still have apnea.

Apnea is hard on your heart, it can contribute to high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, not to mention that when we are wiped out from not having enough sleep, we often turn to sugar to make it through the day, which then makes us fatter, worsens our apnea....

Sorry if it sounds like I'm lecturing, but apnea can be serious. If you have taken the step of getting banded, a little tool like CPAP is minor.

Blueeyedkitty is correct - it makes a WORLD of difference....for some reason I didn't think I would notice the difference because I was diagnosed "mild to moderate" sleep apnea and my setting is fairly low... but I can absolutely tell the next day, it's amazing!

I picked up my cpap machine three weeks before my surgury and once I adjusted to it I can't sleep without it. I can not believe how much more engergy I have. When I woke up from surgery from lapband I was grabbing for my machine. The resp tech came in and hooked up my hose to the air that you get after surgury. The doctors also told me that the cpap machine will help with the healing. I don't know if I will ever give up my cpap machine.

I had a sleep study this past spring. Not becasue I'm thinking about have the surgery, but because I was tired all of the time and my daughter said she could hear me snoring at night. Her room is below mine.

I found out that I have Sleep Apnea. I stopped breathing 16 times per hour. The machine really works if you sleep with it on the whole night. I can't stand the machine, but it really helps.

The sleep study wasn't that bad. I slept better there than at home. I was like a hotel room, with a camera on you the whole night. Good Luck!