[jon.kiparsky]

Curtis Rutland, on 14 November 2012 - 04:31 PM, said:

Just highlighting this. If you get plenty of sleep and still feel like shit all day, you probably may have sleep apnea. Surgery isn't the only or even the first option. There's also CPAP machines, which is likely what a doctor would prescribe you. It's worth looking into. Go to a sleep specialist. Insurances should cover it.

Sleep apnea is a likely possibility in this case, but we probably shouldn't try to diagnose remotely. That being said, if you feel like you're sleeping and it's just not working - you wake up tired, you have trouble waking up - then it's certainly worth checking out. Sleep apnea is often associated with particularly enthusiastic snoring, so if people remark on your snoring, this might be indicative. Sleep apnea is also associated with being overweight - it's largely a mechanical obstruction of the airway in sleep, as I understand, which is aggravated by obesity.
If you're skinny as a rail and sleep silently, it may be that you have a different sleep issue - or not.

I want to echo the advice that others have given: sleep apnea is serious juju. If you think it's an issue, find out for sure, because it's not likely to go away on its own and it'll really mess you up.

[modi123_1]

First you should record yourself sleeping. Investigate if you are showing abnormal pauses in breathing.. or if there's just Edward Cullin perched on your chest watching you sleep.

[mcdougaz]

Honestly, I'm a college student too at Ohio State and I drink an energy drink a day, which is insanely bad for you, but I need it in order to stay focused and alive. It'll probably shorten your life, but at least you're getting your work done like a boss.

[AnalyticLunatic]

mcdougaz, on 14 November 2012 - 03:10 PM, said:

It'll probably shorten your life, but at least you're getting your work done like a boss.

But 1 Life is all you have.

[modi123_1]

Quote

But 1 Life is all you have.

Pfffsst... that won't be true when I get my upgrades from Bigweld Industries. Once I have my robot body you meat bags can bite my shiny metal butt.

[NeoTifa]

My mom has sleep apnea and has one of those machines. I don't snore, so I never considered it. I do, however, have chronic sinus issues, which I think might be from a deviated septum or some shit from when I broke my nose. That might have something to do with it...

[AnalyticLunatic]

modi123_1, on 14 November 2012 - 03:16 PM, said:

Quote

But 1 Life is all you have.

Once I have my robot body you meat bags can:

Spoiler

[creativecoding]

supersloth, on 14 November 2012 - 01:35 PM, said:

creativecoding, on 13 November 2012 - 05:21 PM, said:

...

what kind of surgery was it? from everything people have said i am pretty sure i have it, i just haven't gone it to get it checked from the proper doctors.

Adenoids and tonsil removal. They said if they felt I needed it they could have also removed the uvula and possibly reconstruct my nasal passage or something like that.

Afterwords it's a week of not being able to eat solids (you're actually supposed to eat ice cream), and ~2 more weeks of pain in your throat. It subsides though. You'll get a prescription for pain killers too. I got 3 bottles of Oxycodone/APAP syrup and some nausea pills.

The surgery was definitely worth it though.

Also, if you're unsure about having sleep apnea or not, your doctor may recommend a sleep study center. You go there and they hookup these wires to you and you fall asleep in what looks like a 4-star hotel room and they process the results later.

[supersloth]

yeah, that makes sense then, my dentist is actually the one who said i should get it checked out because of my tonsils.

problem is the older you get the harder the recovery period is for tonsil removal. i had a friend who was basically out of it for two weeks and change. dunno if i can afford that kind of time.

[BenignDesign]

I think I'd rather have surgery than have to sleep with a machine attached to my face every night.

[strawhat89]

I drink 2 cups of coffee on weekdays, nothing on the weekend and no energy drinks ever and I sleep about 7-8 hours daily. If the work I'm doing interests me enough, I can go on and on and if it doesn't, I'll be yawning in no time.

[extremeblueness]

Hopefully this multiquote thing works...

Anyways, how much sleep you get and how much you NEED is completely different. No one can survive their whole life on 3.5 hours of sleep a day.

And the whole idea behind sleep debt is just that: it builds up over time. The ONLY way to get rid of sleep debt is to sleep enough. The effects of sleep debt do very slowly diminish over time, but the debt is still there, and more debt weighs you down more.

[BenignDesign]

Some of us are hard pressed to squeeze in 3.5 hours. Some of us have to get up repeatedly throughout the course of the night to stab our children with needles and drain them of their life blood one tiny drop at a time.

Then, if said child is too high or too low, those of us with this pressing daily issue must proceed to take corrective action, wait 30 minutes, and drain the child of another blood droplet. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Sometimes, when the alarm goes off at 3am for another kid-check, we're wide awake for the next two hours. Sometimes, when 5am rolls around, we don't go back to bed regardless of the level of exhaustion because the time-to-get-up-for-work alarm will be ringing in 30 minutes anyway. So we make a cup of coffee and read a book.

Sometimes, even when the child's readings are within normal range, we wake up to check them out of paranoia. Sometimes we wake up for no reason whatsoever. Sometimes the only sleep we get is passing out on the couch for 20 minutes after dinner.

[modi123_1]

What' the impact of this alleged sleep debt? Is there a sleep cliff you can tumble off unless you convince yourself to bump up the sleep debt ceiling? What happens when I am over? Do I get tokens for a plush dolphin and a few hard tootsie rolls?

I am not even remotely convinced that someone else's fiction of owing some giant sleep ledger exists or applies.

[jon.kiparsky]

supersloth, on 14 November 2012 - 07:08 PM, said:

yeah, that makes sense then, my dentist is actually the one who said i should get it checked out because of my tonsils.

problem is the older you get the harder the recovery period is for tonsil removal. i had a friend who was basically out of it for two weeks and change. dunno if i can afford that kind of time.

Two weeks ain't much compared to the rest of your life.
We hope.