Falling Apart

I am officially falling apart, and as anybody over the age of 40 will attest to, it ain’t fun. Somehow I manage to gear up and play hockey, but I’m usually pretty sore afterward, in a good, feeling sort of healthy way. I’m getting more exercise than ever, though, and that’s a good thing. One tangible benefit is that my stamina during hockey and open stick is much improved, so much so that I don’t feel the constant need to visit the vomitorium while we’re playing.

On other health fronts, there was some question about my hearing because I can’t hear R or the kids. They are constantly frustrated by the need to repeat what they are saying, and I am always being asked to have my hearing checked. I finally went in and got tested and my hearing is actually normal, so clearly the problem lies elsewhere besides my own ears. Vindication is sweet, is it not?

I’ve also got sleep apnea issues, and I went to my doctor to discuss that. My dentist is actually a sleep apnea expert, and he wanted to enroll me in a sleep study and try to get some data on me. I’m all for it if leads to a solution, but as far as I can tell, I have what is called positional sleep apnea, which means that it occurs when I sleep in certain positions, mainly on my back. I’ve been sleeping on my back my entire life, and couldn’t imagine sleeping in another position, but have also always been aware of the fact that I sometimes stop breathing while I sleep. It’s a scary thing because you wake up sucking in air. It freaks R out (I can imagine) and she is always telling me to have it checked out.

However, since it seems to be positional, I took some measures to combat it, and I think it’s working. The key is to not sleep on my back, and I’ve been working on that. The first thing was to get a puffier pillow, because it not only makes sleeping on my side more comfortable, but it makes sleeping on my back difficult. The other thing is I’ve “installed” hard plastic balls on my shirt and that makes it nearly impossible to sleep on my back comfortably. It’s not ideal, but better than starving myself of air. My dentist said that sleep apnea is the #1 risk factor for a heart attack, more than smoking or obesity, so it’s pretty serious stuff.

Finally, one other issue I’ve been having is a little more serious and I have to confess it bummed me out because it involved my heart. You don’t want to mess around with your ticker, it can be pretty serious stuff. The problem I seem to be having is that now and then my heart skips a beat. I cannot for the life of me explain it, but when it first started happening, it was a little scary. I thought I was having a heart attack. It only happens when I’m sedentary, and what kills me is that I’m more active in life than eve, what with hockey and all the housework and parenting duties.

I went to my doc and he gave me a heart monitor that measures my heartbeat. It makes a lot of noise, and it kind of freaked out A&N. They weren’t sure what to make of it. You transmit the data over the phone, and then they do an assessment. I wore it for a month and according to the data, I have some sort of atrial misfiring that causes an irregular heartbeat now and then. Now I’m no expert on it, but my doc did not seem overly concerned, and he said if it continues to schedule a stress test. For the record, there were times when it occurred fairly regularly, and I was convinced that my heart was going to just kick out and stop beating. Talk about freaky.

I decided to try a dietary intervention before breaking out the big guns like drugs or surgery, and the good news is that it seems to be working. The biggest difference was in taking magnesium. Now I don’t know why this is so, but after taking a daily dose of Mg, my heart seems to have returned to normal. It baffles me, not that I’m complaining, but within a day of taking the stuff, I couldn’t really detect too much flutter anymore. I was elated, it’s nice to feel normal again. I haven’t cut out caffeine, but I am also reducing my sugar intake, and that’s probably the hardest thing so far. I live on sugar, and that’s not a good thing, but I’m finding that just cutting it out is a bummer, but not impossible. In fact, once you go a few days without, you realize that you don’t need a massive influx of sweets to feel satisfied, just a small bite of chocolate will do.

All in all, I had some health issues, but I took some intervention measures, and I can’t say they’ve been completely eliminated, but so far, so good. I’ll leave it at that.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Paul J White for the pic.