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Combining CPAP and Diet to Improve Sleep: A Testimonial

Alan Fleming, 32, had severe sleep apnea.
As an obese male with a poor diet, he fit the prime category for having the sleep disorder which caused him to stop breathing over and over again at night.
“I just always felt like I hadn’t got any rest and it hit me really hard in the afternoons. All I wanted to do was sit around and not do anything,” said Fleming, a bank teller.
“I felt like I had someone’s boot pressed in my chest and I was tired all the time and my joints hurt real bad.”
GRADUAL IMPROVEMENT WITH CPAP
Fleming knew his diet and weight were playing in to the disorder so he saw his doctor.
He was diagnosed by a neurosurgeon in 2006 and was sent to the sleep lab at Vanderbilt University in Nashville to undergo a sleep study to determine how severe his apnea was.
It was bad.
“They told me I was waking up between 50 and 60 times an hour,” said Fleming.
Fleming was ordered to wear a continuous positive airway pressure machine, commonly known as a CPAP device.
The device is a mask worn over the face. Some resemble simple oxygen masks, others, like the one Fleming was told to wear, are full-face masks. Both styles are attached to a pump which provides a constant and positve air flow.
Fleming has been using the CPAP machine since 2006, and said the results have been slow but steady.
“The first couple of months I didn’t see any relief. It took four to six months, then the first thing I noticed was my knees weren’t aching,” he said.
He said he is still seeing gradual improvement in his sleep.
“It’s taken a while. But I don’t know that I’ve gotten all the relief I’m going to get.”
More than a year after sleeping with the device, Fleming said his eyes are not bloodshot anymore and he has “a lot more energy.”
But he doesn’t give all the credit to the machine which helpes him breathes at night.
EATING WELL TO SLEEP BETTER
Fleming also knew he had to tackle his weight.
“I think it’s very important to have a proper diet. It’s something I’ve struggled with all my life,” Fleming said.
Fleming signed on with a dietitian who put him on a strict 1,800-calorie-per-day diet.
“That didn’t work for me,” he said. “I’m addicted to food.”
So Fleming switched diets and found a medical weight loss program that gives him some flexibility.
“The first two weeks were really tough,” Fleming said, “But I needed to make a change health wise.”
“It’s really hard to lose weight if you don’t get a good night’s sleep. That’s one of the main reasons I went to the sleep study.”
Six weeks into the diet, Fleming began to notice even more improvement in his sleep and general wellbeing.
“Oh heck, my energy level shot through the roof and yet again I’m sleeping better,” he said.
While he gets about seven of the full nine hours of sleep each night his body needs, he said if it were not for the CPAP device and diet “I would be even worse off.”
As a side note, Fleming lost 30 to 35 pounds and said he has permanently changed the way he eats.
He cut out most the processed food he was consuming and increased his water consumption.
“I drink a gallon of water a day and I cut out caffeine completely,” he said.
“When I drink my gallon of water it gives me a lot more energy and cutting out the caffeine helps me sleep better.”
Fleming said he can’t tell whether the diet or CPAP device gave him the greatest relief.
“It’s the combination of both of them,” he said. “Because of the foods I was eating it was counterbalancing the CPAP. But if I didn’t have the CPAP, I still wouldn’t be sleeping as well as I am now because of my diet.”
Written by Dorren Robinson, Content Director for www.ISleptGreat.com.
Dorren’s days are spent playing many roles – journalist, professor, wife, and mother.
She is keenly aware of how elusive great sleep can be.

Original content created for Isleptgreat.com