Sleep apnea

I haven't been sleeping well lately; according to the readings of my CPAP machine, there have been nights when there have been over 20 apneae per hour, a number which is far too high. I would like to blame this on all the traveling of the past two weeks, but ironically I get the impression that there are fewer incidents on the days that I travel. After locating my sleep clinic (it has moved from nearby Bet Shemesh to Jerusalem), I made an appointment to have my machine checked last Sunday (meaning another day on which I traveled).

The first question which the technician asked me after downloading results from the machine was whether I had put on weight. As it happens, I had been for a regular checkup in the clinic two days previously, so I was able to state (rather unhappily) that I had put on three kilos of weight in the past few months. This satisfied the technician who explained that such an increase would probably mean that the pressure that the machine was putting out (7 cmH₂O) was not high enough anymore. 

He showed me how to increase the pressure (normally the user does not know how to do this)  to 7.5 cmH₂O. He said to see what happens over the next week: if the number of incidents decreases but not significantly, then I should increase the pressure to 8 cmH₂O and then see what happens. As it happens, the number of incidents dropped dramatically (6.7 per hour on Tuesday, 8.4 on Wednesday and only 4.2 on Thursday), so I'm going to leave the pressure at 7.5 cmH₂O for another week and then check the results.

I was in the clinic again yesterday in order to get a flu inoculation. I took the opportunity to weigh myself and was pleased to note that my weight had dropped by nearly one kilo over the week. The most dramatic change in my diet during the past week was cutting the number of milkshakes (milk + powder) from five a day to one or two a day. During the working week, this isn't much of a problem (I just drink a herbal infusion instead) but at home on the weekend, the temptation is greater. I've been drinking more apple flavoured water. I've also cut my two spoonfuls of granola in the morning to only one spoonful, and have cut down on the biscuits.

I hope that next week will show a similar weight loss.