I am finding out that certain people have to take the sleep apnea test. I was wondering what its purpose is with the banding. I have sleeping issue's and have my entire life. Will this effect me being able to get banded. :crying:

Many insurance companies are requiring members to have one sometimes two co-morbids in addition to various weight or BMI requirements. Sleep Apena is a co-morbid for some of the companies, like mine (TRICARE). There are overweight people like myself who do not have high blood pressure or diabetes so other co-morbids need to be researched. Being diagnosed with sleep apena and prescribed a CPAP machine to help me sleep is a good thing. If you do not have some of the normal co-morbids associated with obesity ( high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. then having a sleep test is definately worth a shot.

A lot of doctors use this as one of co-issues to get you approved for surgery. Also some doctors want you to be treated for that before surgery. I had a sleep study done 3 months before surgery and will be having one this month to see how well Iam doing with the weight loss. Iam down almost 60 lbs now. I hope that this answers your question.

Chris

Many overweight people have sleep apnea. When you sleep, you relax the muscles in the back of your throat and the extra tissue can block the airway. This can cause you to have periods where you stop breathing when you sleep. You can have several periods in a minute where you break the sleep cycle and come out of REM sleep. This can impact your metabolism, cause headaches, tiredness during the day, increase blood pressure, etc.

Look at it this way...while we as overweight America are looking for ways to battle our issues and are desperate at times to find them, doctors have found a "gold mine" as to how to make their wallets fatter (pun fully intended). Since many insurance companies won't approve unless you have one or more co-morbitities, doctors have found a symptom that is easy to diagnose. Therefore...cha-ching!

Don't get me wrong...sleep apnea is very real and many obese people suffer with it without even knowing. I have it along with multiple co-morbitities. Just got approved by my insurance and getting ready to have my psych eval.

Please understand that I'm not being negative but rather realistic.

Out,

BigDaddy

I'm a newbie and researching. But I have heard that some people have to go without their CPAP machine the first week or so because it can stretch out the pouch. I can believe that because ever since I got my machine, I haven't had a single episode of Gerd and I burp up a lot of gas first thing in the morning. I have to wait to see how it will affect my first week once I do get the surgery.

Leona.