With sleep problem solved, 'everything's so much better now'

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Better Sleep Month

With sleep problem solved, 'everything's so much better now'

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- Ruth Marks felt lousy all the time, and she didn't know why.

She suffered from sinus infections and colds that never seemed to stop coming. She always healed slowly from surgeries and injuries. And the fatigue was simply unbearable.

"I was exhausted during the middle of the day," said Marks, 48, of Deerfield , Ill. "I felt like I didn't sleep at night. I never really woke up rested. I used sugar and caffeine to keep myself going."

It seemed to Marks that her problem had dragged on for a couple of years. Her husband said it seemed much longer than that.

He suffers from sleep apnea, a condition in which people stop breathing in their sleep, sometimes hundreds of times a night and often for more than a minute. He believed that his wife probably had the same problem.

But Marks soldiered on, despite her weariness, until a cardiologist recommended that she undergo a sleep test. The doctor was concerned about her heart and thought that a sleep disorder might be the source of her ills.

So, in June 2008, Marks went to the hospital to sleep.

She laughs recalling the first sleep test. "There are wires all over your head and in your nose and all over your body, and then they tell you to sleep normally," she said.

After that first night, the doctors gave her the results of how she'd slept. "They told me I had incredibly interrupted sleep," Marks said.

They then brought her back a second night to sleep while hooked up to a sleep apnea machine, also known as a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine. The machine delivers constant air pressure through a small nasal mask that the person wears while sleeping. The air pressure keeps the throat open, which allows the person to breathe without interruption.

The results were clear to Marks the minute she opened her eyes the next day. "I had the best night's sleep that I'd had for the longest time," she said.

Now, both she and her husband use CPAP machines to sleep.

"It's very quiet," Marks said. "I went through four different masks to find one I could live with and my husband could sleep next to. It becomes almost like a sedative. You put it on, and your body says, 'OK, I know what to do' -- and it does it."

Marks said that being well-rested has helped her overall health. She's less stressed, she eats better, and she doesn't get sick as often as she used to.

"Before, I had no proof of how restless and interrupted my sleep had become," she said. "Everything's so much better now."