heads up sleep apnea sufferers

[katwmn63 0]

make sure you tell your anesthesiologist and recovery nurse.....though alarms will probably go off anyway.

i had my surgery today and of course the sleep apnea i suffer from was not that much of an issue during surgery because i had the oxygen tube... but when i got to recovery that was a different story. the recovery nurse asked about my pain and gave me more dilauded (sp?) which is the pain control medicine, in my iv. shortly after that i fell asleep. my recovery nurse kept waking me and telling me to breathe deep breaths....then the alarm sounded on my monitor, then she gave me oxygen.... and no more dilauded. i had a longer recovery time also.

i had assumed i wasn't breathing in deeply enough...because deep breaths were less comfortable immediately after surgery due to the gas/tightness.. but come to find out that my sleep apnea was also a very likely culprit. my surgeon contacted me and told me to avoid my pain meds going to bed tonight and opt only for ibuprofen when sleeping.

just want you all to have a heads up...i know many of us have sleep apnea as a comorbidity.

be careful k?

[Nanook 2]

For every surgery I've ever had since diagnosed with sleep apnea I've been required to bring my machine with me. Do you use a machine?

[katwmn63 0]

no... but my surgeon knew i didn't own/use one despite the diagnosis (hindsight that was very silly for me not to). i honestly didn't realize...or perhaps believe, that i completely "stopped" breathing. but wow, today was an eye opener. scary!!

do they ask you to bring it for recovery and your hospital room after surgery? during surgery was not an issue of course with the tube... and the recovery nurse was on it ... like right now... with the oxygen too. hmmmm - i learned something today for sure!

Edited July 14, 2009 by katwmn63

[elcee 3,342]

I don't have sleep apnea , couldn't sleep and still kept setting alarms off! For some strange reason anaeathesia tends to make me not be able to sleep rather than be sleepy. Every time I relaxed my monitor dropped from 100 to 90 (whatever it was measuring) and the alarm went off which certainly prevented me from sleeping.They did give me the oxygen tube with the prongs that sit in your nose but that was a joke as it wouldn't stay on. Maybe its good for people who stay in one place but I move around all the time!

[katwmn63 0]

elcee-

LOL maybe we had the same machine:)

[juliansmom2003 3]

Wow! Thanks for the heads up! I'm double glad I'm being tested for it now!!