I have been on a multi year journey of self discovery which really kicked off back in 2015. Shortly after kicking this off, it turned into a second parallel journey of self improvement. I am convinced now more than ever that this is going to be a two part journey for the rest of my life, as I keep uncovering more useful information that can be used to improve things in my life.
Much of what I have been sharing over the past couple months has been focused on these two journeys, with a few hard nosed lessons learned that can be taken forward by many of you.
Today’s post is about one of the single biggest areas of improvement in my life in the past year. I have shared this surgical procedure with a few folks in my life, and every single time I get a quizzical ‘what the?’ response as nobody has ever heard of this prior to my bringing it up.
What is it that I’m so excited about?
Snoreplasty.
So last year, I spent an incredible amount of time getting blood work performed, hormones checked, organs scanned, MRIs conducted, and some arguably more esoteric things performed all in the spirit of fixing myself.
At one point, one of my doctors thought I might have a tumor in my brain due to my blood work. Thankfully those tests came back negative, and they even said my brain looked good. This led to a secondary round of tests that culminated in a sleep study. There’s a post on the actual sleep study experience waiting to be authored.
There was a thought as I went into the sleep study that I was not sleeping well, and that I probably had an apnea of some sort. I knew my sleep quality was garbage, as I woke up each night around 3am for anywhere 1-3 hours. This had been my experience for years, and it was in many ways my normal. I learned last year that my normal on a variety of fronts was not typical. In some areas, being atypical was exceptionally good, and in other areas – such as my sleep quality – it was simply…
Degenerative.
If any of you are Red Sox or Texas Rangers fans, then you know of Mike Napoli. If you do not know of him or his back story – here’s his gig. He’s a major league baseball player, he is known as a power hitter and reasonably good fielder, and a hell of a team mate. He helped the Red Sox win a World Series back in 2013. He did all of this while not getting a good night’s sleep for well over a decade. He literally slept through batting practice on that historic run to the World Series win, due to his pervasive sleeping issues. In 2015, he finally succumbed to surgery in order to fix his obstructive sleep apnea condition.
The doctors basically broke his jaw and he had to eat a liquid diet for weeks. Brutal surgery and especially dangerous. For him, it was a success. He was able to extend his career by three years and counting. More importantly, he claims his quality of life is now in living color as opposed to fuzzy grey reception on an old TV. I am still following his updates on his ongoing improvements, moreso than his box scores as his baseball career winds down.
So what is the point here?
Well, I’ve written in the past about the effects of quality vs poor sleep that range from low energy to low testosterone to elevated hunger cravings. The clarity of thought suffers, and ‘brain fog’ is a constant occurrence for those of us that have suffered poor sleep quality over the years.
Well, I am here to tell you that you do not know if you are sick, if that is all you know. For me, and sleep quality – I have been living a life of greys for a long time – until probably February of this year.
So last year, after I had it confirmed that I was without a tumor in my brain, and then my sleep study was finally ordered by my PCP. I sat on it.
I did not do anything with the approval for the sleep study for a solid two months. I was pursuing another avenue of treatment in the hopes of returning to my energetic ways, and that treatment was helping – but not directly like I thought it would in terms of my sleep.
So after sitting on the green light for the sleep study I went in for the damn thing. I was frankly scared that I would be told to wear a mask due to an apnea like Napolli had. Even scarier – they’d have to reopen my jaw like they did him. I had broken it once in my life when I was 4, and I wasn’t really looking forward to this prospect either.
So what did they find?
Well, they diagnosed me with a upper airway resistance syndrome (UARS). It is not as severe as a full blown apnea, but it does qualify as a sleeping disorder that can pretty much wreck your quality of life.
In a word it – sucks.
So there are a variety of treatments that can be applied to help with this, however I wanted to solve the problem – not treat the symptom.
I knew I was not going to wear a mouth guard at night.
CPAP machine and masks and tubes – I know myself, there was zero chance of that working… have I mentioned that I travel a fair amount?
So what to do?
Well, one option was to keep doing what I was doing as my oxygen levels were not horrible at night per the sleep study.
The fact that it could progress to a full blown apnea was also a bit worrisome. I already envisioned myself sipping dinner from a straw like Napoli…
So the sleep study doctor told me to go see a local Ear, Nose, Throat specialist. My PCP at the time was less than convinced with the referral requested, and after some strong advocacy on my part (yet another post waiting be authored) – he relented and referred me to a local guy that has transfomed my life with snoreplasty.
So what the hell is snoreplasty?
Well they basically do an in office procedure that you can walk out of the same day. They take a long curved needle and blast the roof of your mouth with pure alcohol. This results in a gaping sore as the alcohol burns away your tissue, leaving a wound to be healed.
They delivered this right in the top of the roof of my mouth. I was told it would be like a bad sore throat for a few days.
What I was not told is that it would cause my uvula to feel like a basketball in the back of my throat for nearly two weeks due to swelling. I was constantly nauseous during this time as everything was triggering my gag reflex, and my sore throat of a few days was much longer than that. The procedure was simply brutal about four days later.
Well, I was told in about three months, I would start to notice some sleep improvements. I was told six months removed, and I would know if my sleep was drastically improved or not.
I had this procedure performed in early December, 2017. I went back in March, and it was largely healed up. The wound was largely scarred over, thereby tightening the roof of my mouth – thereby leaving more space to breath while I slept.
This tightening of the roof of my mouth is the game changer from the procedure.
My ENT said that for 80% of the patients he sees with UARS that one injection will solve it within 6 months – permanently. For the remaining 20% – a secondary injection in alternative locations in the roof of the mouth – brings the success rate to 90% of all UARS cases he sees.
Well, I’m one of the 80% as of August, 2018.
I no longer wake up at 3am every night.
I no longer wake up feeling exhausted.
Brain fog is no longer tied to my sleep issues when I do experience it.
My blood work is now much improved, and continuing to normalize into an ever increasingly good range.
My strength is constantly available to me.
I can now go for 4 hours a night if need be, and I can crush the day like I used to when I was 23. When I get 7-8 hours, which is more than half the time nowadays, I CRANK across all areas of my life.
Resiliency is back.
Smiles are pervasive in my life, as I now understand what sleep deprivation can do to one’s mood.
I now understand that things I used to view as being ‘broken’ or ‘wrong’ about myself were truly rooted as physical issues, deformities if you will, that needed to be addressed, rather than judged.
This notion of addressing or in other cases, simply deepening an understanding of one’s self, is something I’ll be hitting again and again here.
In the past, even if I did not truly understand what was going on, I’d likely throw it in the bad pile. My poor sleep quality was one of those things, now I have this, among others, as an example of what better information will do as I seek to improve myself.
Two journeys well underway, both informing the other at this point.
If you have shitty sleep quality, you owe it to yourself to get your bloodwork done, and to pursue a sleep study. If you are a candidate – I strong encourage you to get the Snoreplasty performed.
It has truly transformed my life, and brought me a whole new realm of energy resiliency reserves that I thought I had lost in the 1990’s and 2000’s – never to be found again.