I have severe sleep apnea.

[Cless]

Long blog-style post here...but I don't have a blog, and currently have no intentions of getting one right now, or ever.

I don't know if anyone remembers my posts from older iterations of the forum, but I posted about personal cognitive impairment on an occasion or two...like five years ago or something? Long story short, I've been feeling like crap for years. My problems align pretty much exactly with Wikipedia's list of cognitive issues associated with Fibromyalgia (not that I actually *have* Fibro--I don't really suffer from any of its other main symptoms...sleep issues aside). See the second paragraph of this for the list.


For the first several years I recognized I was having a problem, I thought I had Attention Deficict/Hyperactivity Disorder (inattentive type, or "predominantly inattentive" as it's now called), like I'm sure many others like to self-diagnose themselves with. The first psychologist I saw in 2004 didn't agree. He thought I just had generalized anxiety and an avoidant personality. My doctor tried putting me on anti-depressants (to no avail).

I never wrote about it here, but two years or so later, I saw a psychiatric nurse and was able to convince her that I had what I had previously self-diagnosed myself with. Hooray! She tapered me off the anti-depressants and then wrote me a script for Adderall. Oh god that was some amazing stuff. But as good as it made me feel, its effectiveness wore off in just a matter of days. Even when it was working, it was still far from perfect: my memory was still generally poor, and I was still unable to multitask. I started trying nearly everything else under the sun for this condition to no avail. They did nothing whatsoever.

I saw another psychologist for a neuropsychological exam shortly after my ADHD drug trials. He said "Major Depressive Disorder." Great. But I've already tried anti-depressants, which did absolutely nothing. Several months after this (about mid-2007), I stopped the mental health treatment since it was essentially going nowhere.

Mostly non-action between then and early parts of 2009. I tried cognitive enhancers, all of which basically did nothing of note, if anything at all. I began to wonder if maybe (most of?) my symptoms were actually side effects of an undiagnosed physical ailment. A few researched possiblities came up: brain tumor (thought I had a few things potentially consistent with this), sleep apnea (my sleep definitely hadn't seemed as restful as I recalled it being in the mid-90s), or perhaps thyroid issues.

Since between then and April, I could tell my symptoms had suddenly gotten even worse. It frankly hit the point where it's just *too* difficult to tolerate anymore. Motivation started falling, and the speed at which I got things got done became even slower. As the weeks went by, it got worse.

I approached my doctor about the possibility of sleep apnea and thyroid issues. He ordered a sleep study and set up a lab for a thyroid test. I never followed up on the thyroid lab (bad me), but did on the sleep study. It took months of waiting, but by July, I finally had my sleep study. Three whole freaking months later (a week ago), I finally had the follow-up appointment to review my results. Sleep apnea: confirmed. Severe sleep apnea. I found out I had 45 or so "events" an hour, events where I basically stop breathing for a period of time, starving my brain of oxygen. Consider that I've been like this for 10+ years, you bet this has had a huge impact on my cognitive function.

I was sent home with a CPAP machine for treatment. It hasn't been set on optimal pressure yet, but I go for my titration study to find out what that is tomorrow. Unfortunately, my follow-up appointment at the sleep clinic won't be for another month, so the machine probably won't be adjusted for optimal pressure until then. Treatment for this usually doesn't help immediately. It could be months before I feel semi-normal again...assuming it helps with my symptoms at all. I have faith that it will, though.

tl;dr version: For over ten years, I've had numerous episodes (45 an hour) where I literally stop breathing while asleep. This, in all likelihood, has had a severe impact on my mental performance and function. I started treatment for this a week ago, but it could take months of it before there's a big improvement.


What does this mean to everyone else? My symptoms have definitely made it difficult to juggle all these projects. Very difficult. Overwhelming, even. Don't worry though, this IS NOT a post saying I'm throwing in the towel on any of them! Hell no. It's just that it's largely caused me to tackle my workload on these things a hell of a lot more slowly than it should, and tends to make it more difficult to work on, since a lot of extra effort on my part needs to be expended to do it, as well as keep the quality level up.

Hopefully the symptoms will gradually clear up and I'll be a little more productive as time goes on.

[DuskShark]

Get well soon, Cless.   Try consulting Annie Barrs.

[Cless Aileron]

Get well, man.  I know we have our issues we need to deal with and for you, this is one of them.  So just do what you need to do.

[pedrocasilva]

I can't possibly imagine how it is to live with a problem like that for years, but I hope your life quality improves now, because that's obviously taxing on the body; which by it's turn is no doubt taxing on the mind.

[ForceCube]

Man... I have the exact same problem as you (not sleep apnea, at least not that I'm aware of, but the symptoms you claim to have - those listed on the Wikipedia page) and it also has a huge negative impact on my life, especially considering I'm aspiring to be a writer and have a ton of projects that seem to be going nowhere even though I want to finish them all.

In a way, reading your post has encouraged me to seek treatment or at least try to find out what the hell is wrong with me... anyway, even though it seems like it's going to take a while, you should be glad you know what the problem is and that the solution's (hopefully) on its way.

Now, if I may ask, how the hell have you found the motivation to put so much effort into the Tales of Phantasia project for so long? Given the circumstances, it's simply amazing that you managed to spend ten years working on a single thing that's more like a hobby than an actual job. I certainly wouldn't be able to.

[Dimentionalist]

My sleep's not exactly restful, either (I have to take Melatonin at night), but not breathing at times during the night just sounds awful. I hope that your symptoms get better and that you get well soon!

[Cless]

Now, if I may ask, how the hell have you found the motivation to put so much effort into the Tales of Phantasia project for so long? Given the circumstances, it's simply amazing that you managed to spend ten years working on a single thing that's more like a hobby than an actual job. I certainly wouldn't be able to.

Hard question to answer, really. Started off with a huge desire to see the PS1 version in English, vowed that I would see it through to completion no matter how long it took (I keep repeating this lately, heh). There's just too much work that's been done to it over the years and just isn't worth throwing out. I could release a patch right now if I really wanted to to get the project out and out of mind, but the perfectionist in me just keeps saying "no, not yet."

I'm REALLY hoping this treatment is relatively successful though, for sake of my own sanity. The thought of putting this much work into the other projects with me being like this is just kinda scary. As it is, it frequently feels like it takes an hour to get what seems to be about 5-10 minutes worth of work done.

I'm notably slower at finishing games than average when I actually play them. I usually find my completions times to be double or near double the average of everyone else, not including periods of just leaving the game idling for hours on end.

Anyway, I'm leaving for my titration study in a few.

EDIT: Fixed a terrible error since I was hastily writing this so as to not miss my titration. I meant "takes about an hour to get 5-10 minutes of work done."

[DeadlyAnGeL91792]

i use to have depression back when i was 10-14 until i just looked at myself one day and screamed QUIT YOUR BITCHING,after i tried everything in my power to cheer up and make sure my friends wouldnt see me feeling sad or anything and well it worked i never feel depressed anymore (im 17) and now thinking back on those days i wondered if it was all just in my head that i was sad just because i wanted to be and i came to the conclusion that if you believe something that its true,that its each persons own job to make their own truth i mean yeah i know that "truth" doesnt hide facts if a person has cancer they have cancer but idk why i really just shared that feels a bit weird to me right now any way cless i guess what im trying to say is...sleep,just sleep and i hope you feel better

(no im not saying to anyone quit your bitching and it certainly wasnt an insult to cless because i worship him i just thought i would throw in my own 2cents)

[Cless]

And back from the titration. The pressure the tech had me on made the preliminary setting on my CPAP machine seem absolutely pathetic (it's set at 8). Too bad she wasn't allowed to disclose any information on the study to me. Oh well, it's not like I can actually set the pressure myself.  Now begins the nearly six week wait to get that sorted out.

[ClesStahn]

  it's sad to hear of your ordeal, man..

I "somewhat" feel your pain, Cless..I've got a loved one dealing with this same thing.

As others have said, it's incredibly noble of you to keep up the project with all of the confusing (and for a while unknown) health matters in your circumstances. Just cranks up my respect for you even more, personally.

It's comforting to hear that since it seems like a cause has been identified and a better idea of what's goin on with you has been refined, you're now on a good path to get it kicked--and I'm glad about that.

Do what you need to do, man. And dunno if it means a lot to ya, but I will be praying for you  .

[Dopple]

My god, I don't know how you can function with that kind of condition.  It's quite motivating, to see you still able to make considerable progress on projects of this magnitude.  Good luck, I hope it's solved soon.

[pesmerga00]

I have a nurse friend who's brother suffers from this. What helped him was breathing exercises, herbal teas, and (only if/after your well enough) very light cardio workouts to strengthen his lungs. Also those breathe-rite nose strips might help you a bit.

Have you determined if its OSA or CSA?

Either way man, good luck and God speed on getting better.

[Cless]

Wall of text, round 2:

Anyway, it's OSA. I have a pretty big neck.

I can still function well enough to take care of basic necessities, though many tasks feel like a huge chore and take quite a bit longer to complete than they should. It's very easy to feel...lazy (I actually surprise myself at how decently I'm able to keep my apartment clean). While some people always need to be doing something, I frequently get into these states of mind where doing absolutely nothing just feels the best. Really...just sitting or laying on the couch doing nothing (no games, no TV, not even music). It's as strange as it sounds. I'd probably sleep if I could, but for some reason, I'm generally unable to fall asleep unless the time's within my actual end-of-day bedtime. It's like this is my body's way of telling me I'm tired during the day, while most sleep apnea suffers instead just feel SLEEPY and can go nap for a while. I can't nap during the day, for whatever reason.

What do I generally feel like? I suppose the best explanation I can think of would be like someone who's just slightly above a morning zombie, all day long. Head generally just feels like it's in a huge, thick fog, which has a lot of consequences. There's also this feeling of being slightly disconnected with reality.

I believe around 1998 is where I began "falling off." It wasn't TOO BAD then, but late 2000/early 2001 is where things started getting noticeable. I had trouble concentrating at work, felt a little awkward, and people there obviously perceived me as stupid (the place was family-run, but during a day shift with none of the family working I did indeed find out from the nicer, non-family people that shit was being talked about behind my back there)

From then on until the start of 2009, I definitely believe I had gotten even worse as time went on, but the shift seems so gradual during that period that it's hard to gauge exactly how much. Then it was this year where I think I'm feeling another drastic drop-off.

The hardest thing being hit right now are my motivation levels. They've been getting chipped away; it became really apparent while I was in the midst of writing the third draft script edit for ToP, which quite a bit longer than I wanted it to. Here I am now practically (but not officially) writing a fifth draft which is taking even longer; I'm having longer breaks, and even when working, it's taking even longer to come up with ideas to polish the rough lines that remain or further improve lines previously edited (perfectionism at work; there's often a feeling of seeing a line--or entire conversation--that looked good before, but now something about it doesn't seem so great anymore, so now you're fighting to find a way to "fix" it.)

Hopefully none of this is sounding too emo. That's not how I want these posts to sound. I just feel the need to get this information out. Been wanting to talk about this stuff for a long time, but hadn't for various reasons. Now that I've got a solid diagnosis for something, the time seemed right.

[pedrocasilva]

Hopefully none of this is sounding too emo. That's not how I want these posts to sound. I just feel the need to get this information out. Been wanting to talk about this stuff for a long time, but hadn't for various reasons. Now that I've got a solid diagnosis for something, the time seemed right.

It's not sounding emo at all, this is your community and we care for you, the projects are nice, but to be honest I'm not here for them, I'm here for the community, as most of the guys that have been hanging out here for years must be, and you've been constantly the driving force behind it.

As you describe it, your ailment has been a burden for too long (and again, I can't even imagine what it must feel like); confiding in someone and feeling comprehended seems like a important thing to do, I can only feel thankful that you felt we were worthy of being a part of it.

I hope you get well soon.

[Kuwert]

Maybe once he gets this taken care of we'll see ToP and DestinyR released within a year's time as he has too much energy and doesn't know what to do with it    ohh that sounds so nice....

[Cless]

Maybe once he gets this taken care of we'll see ToP and DestinyR released within a year's time as he has too much energy and doesn't know what to do with it    ohh that sounds so nice....

That would be badass.