5 months ago I wrote about getting ill with a “long cough” that was going around the local community. I usually bounce back from illnesses like the cold well, or don’t get sick to begin with. This was different. I wasn’t able to heal without medication. A few months later, for a different reason I had a sleep study done. I found out I have hypopnea (shallow breathing). It can cause a person to have micro-wake-ups in the night. Those micro-awakenings don’t always cause you to be conscious of them. My best guess is that was why I wasn’t able to heal well during that time. When I got put on medication strong enough to knock me out (sleep-wise) my body finally healed itself.
Although I often reference the Greek word (used in the book of Revelation1 of the bible) for sorcery is pharmakeia, I don’t turn all pharma products into a persecutor. Sometimes you just need a little help. I view pharma products as good and bad and it depends on the dosage. But other people view them as saintly (pharma could have no problems whatsoever) or as the devil (never trust pharma and always suffer if you can’t find a better alternative).
I’ve been meaning to write this article for a long time but a few other things have come up and so now it seems like the perfect time.
First, this might be a fake rage-bait story, but supposedly a pregnant woman took an overdose of Tylenol because Trump warned pregnant women to not take it while pregnant unless absolutely necessary. I would not share that story as if it is absolutely true, but it proves my point. The story has been shared because it’s believable today due to some people thinking there’s nothing wrong with pharmaceutical products if they’re approved. It’s like they’re actually blind to side effects being an issue.
One-Dimensional Thinkers
I’ve discussed this before, but people in the drama triangle have the cognitive distortion of black-or-white thinking (aka splitting). People have TDS see Trump as “all bad” which means everything he is for, they’re against, and vice versa. So if Trump is against Tylenol for pregnant ladies, and these people are anti-Trump, they’re pro-Tylenol.
When I wrote about the “long cough” I had a comment from someone who thought my use of pharmaceutical products was going to make things worse rather than better. She believed that pharmaceuticals were all evil and you should never resort to using them. However in my case, it was the best thing I could do. It allowed my body the ability to repair itself so that I could get back to work, get paid, and not starve.
It’s Not All Bad…or all Good.
Pharmaceuticals are not all evil or all good. There is nuance and the dose matters. I am very wary of pharmaceuticals, and I don’t take more than I feel is needed, but I won’t allow myself to suffer if they’re going to help. Now that I know that I have hypopnea, I am using a CPAP as well, which leads us to the next part of the article…
Medical Folks — Condescending AF
I live in a small town, and I see a local Physician Assistant (PA) who can prescribe drugs (and a CPAP script). He’s been great, doing everything to help me figure out what will work for me. When I realized I could use an SD card in the machine and track my stats, I asked him if I could play with the settings on the CPAP and he said sure. So I did.
They started me on a pressure prescription of 4 to 20 cmH₂O. I found out that when my CPAP regularly puts out pressure above 7 it wakes me up. Here is one of my most recent nights with the too big (up to 20) range. At about 4:12 am it hit almost 8 and I woke up and took the mask off because of the annoyance. I wanted more sleep because I’m always exhausted. So I fell asleep without the mask that morning.
When the max was 7, my AHI was still below 5 which is considered normal (not apnea/hypopnea). It was actually really close to 1/hr. which is low. I used the mask for over nine hours that night. (Daily Usage is in pink on the middle right of these pictures)
So in the range that I have spent plenty of time and effort figuring out (4 to 7), I use my CPAP more often (than when the range is up to 20) and still get a good AHI for the whole night.
A couple of days ago I got a call from the people who I am rent-to-owning the CPAP machine and she told me that I can’t play around with the prescription (pressure range). They can see that I edited it. They won’t allow it. I need a prescription for that if I want it changed.
I told her, “I wake up if it goes above 7,” while she was trying to say, “It’s supposed to do that.” I asked, “It’s supposed to wake me up?” She said, “The pressure goes up if they detect that you are not breathing well enough.” So I said, “But it’s waking me up. What good is that?”
The Dose is Wrong
I understand why the pressure is going up. I think it’s going up too much unnecessarily. If it works at a lower pressure, like a constant 7, and it has been working well enough, then why do I need to let it go so high that it wakes me up and I stop using it? Because I will stop using it if it wakes me up. I’ll just go back to sleep without it on for a few more hours. And if I was in a different situation and couldn’t get a new prescription, I might just stop using it altogether.
If I didn’t get this machine through my insurance, and I just bought it from some website or second-hand marketplace, I could change the pressure range with no issues whatsoever. But, because insurance is paying for it, now I have to try to get my PA to change the prescription, because no matter what I do to this machine at my house, they keep turning it back to the prescription they want me on from their location.
Now, I’m willing to do the work that I need to do to fix this, even if it came to having to buy my own machine. But it’s beyond frustrating. And a large portion of it is because these people think they know better than I do what works and what doesn’t. People in the medical field, especially larger companies / cities tend to fit themselves into the “savior” mode of the Drama Triangle and they look at their patients as idiots (“victims”).
I do understand that they may be concerned about me changing the prescription and having something happen to me while on their machine (they don’t want to get sued). I have mild hypopnea when untreated. It’s not happening. I haven’t had an AHI over 5 (which is the threshold for getting called “mild” from normal) since I’ve been using the machine for the past month.
I hate that I have to deal with this crap when I’m an intelligent person way more concerned with my well-being than they are. They seemingly couldn’t care less if it wakes me up multiple times at night if it covers their ass.
This won’t last forever. But, yeah, if people in the medical community ever want to improve their reputation it’s going to have to come with a little humility.
They’re far too prideful right now.
Revelation 18:21 Then a mighty angel picked up a stone the size of a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying: “With such violence the great city of Babylon will be cast down, never to be seen again. 22 And the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will never ring out in you again. Nor will any craftsmen of any trade be found in you again, nor the sound of a millstone be heard in you again. 23 The light of a lamp will never shine in you again, and the voices of a bride and bridegroom will never call out in you again. For your merchants were the great ones of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery (pharmakeia).”
Excellent article as there really are a wide range of views on pharmaceuticals.
My view: "Evil, evil, evil" (with some minor rare exceptions)
I have too many decades of experience and research finding healthy natural alternatives that are safer and perform better than pharmaceuticals. So yes, I'm extremely biased against them.
There are some cases where a prescription item (unfortunately some natural substances they have "locked up" by requiring prescriptions) using in a proper dosage *short term* can work wonders.
If I were to throw out a "rule of thumb": never take any prescription drug for more than three months. And completely avoid the most popular and commonly prescribed drugs.
An APAP may be more effective for you, but they can be more difficult to get.