The Sleep Nomad

A Sleep, Sleep Apnea & Insomia blog

The Sleep Nomad Reboot

2019-04-07 The Sleep NomadGeneral

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The Sleep Nomad Reboot

What happened to the sleep nomad? Well let’s just say I have been on the trail and dealing with life in general. The other thing that happened was upgrading my blog to the latest version of Gatsby. That basically broke everything and it took hours to comb through the issues. I think I have it all back together now. I also have lots to update you on as far as my progress with sleeping and sleep apnea. I just completed a new sleep study in the lab and I will be sharing the results in my next post. I promise that post will be up shortly after this one.

I have also decided to expand the scope of this blog to be wider than just vitamin d and its effects. It was the catalyst that got me going and trying to beat sleep apnea. Improving sleep apnea has many variables and nutrition is just one of them. I have been doing many things in tandem to improve sleep apnea and I want to make sure I share those. Why? I think to improve sleep apnea, we need to look at the whole big sleep picture. Our brain, physical structure, breathing, mental mindset, nutrition, exercise to name a few. That is what I have been doing while I was “out on the trail”.

Vitamin D since the last post.

I have had a change of mindset on supplements in general. I used to seek them out hoping to give my body a boost. What I have found personally is that I am better off letting my body decide what and how much it needs. I seem to be one of those people that are sensitive to changes. Mind you, I have always been this way. My new approach is do those things that come natural to my body.

For example, after taking probiotics for more than 10 years, I stopped about four months ago. This was partly because of a gut issue that cropped up while I was on the trail. My G.I doctor said this when I told him about taking probiotics, “taking billions of bacteria like that is not natural. But all of the marketing of them makes us think it is”. I could only respond that he was right. I never needed them before. My parents never took them. How do I know if they are helping? I plan to do a quick post on this later as I read a very interesting study about probiotics.

For many people, only positive results come from supplements including vitamin d. If you are one of those people, good for you and I am glad that you get to see the upside. I have since October cut back my vitamin d to about 1000IU a day. I certainly feel like I benefited from the beginning of my vitamin d journey. My body didn’t seem to agree with keeping it at an unnaturally elevated level for extended periods of time. I have not checked my level since my last post. This year, I am going to use my body’s natural ability to create vitamin d from sunlight instead of supplementing. Sensible sun exposure. Lots of skin area for short amounts of time. In the winter, I will supplement again.

So how is the sleep? Sleep Apnea?

Glad you asked! As with everything, it has had its ups and downs. Good weeks/nights with bad ones mixed in. I wondered if reducing my vitamin d level was impacting it. Or was it just life in general?I am not really sure. What I can tell you is that yes, in fact, you can sleep with your CPAP machine at a pressure of 4 if you use the right mask! I never thought it was possible but I did it for months with an AHI below 1.

In the meantime, having suffered with congestion for years, I went to see an ENT doctor to see if there was something wrong with my nose. It turns out that I have big turbinates. I told him about my sleep apnea and the fact that with my oral appliance and a pressure 4, I was below 1 on my AHI. He looked at me and said “I don’t think you need that CPAP machine. Let’s get a sleep study and see how you do with just the oral appliance.” I was excited, sort of stunned and a little apprehensive. Did my sleep apnea improve to the point I could realize a dream of getting off the CPAP machine?? In my next post, I will give you the results of my in lab sleep study with just my oral appliance.

unsplash-logoKalen Emsley