> On the other hand, my wife tells me I snore and randomly stop breathing

Snoring is "fine". There is some resistance, but it's likely you can still breathe sufficiently. The problem is when snoring stops.

By the way, my first sleep study was crap and I couldn't sleep and no conclusions were drawn.

The second was at home and I had a cpap machine waiting for me one day after I returned the results.

> If I felt I had an urgent problem I'd just deal with the study

By the time it's urgent you are already deep into other issues, such as high blood pressure. And now you have more than one issue to deal with. This is like the biological version of tech debt.

One problem with waiting is that as apnea worsens it can cause depression and sap your will. That's what happened to me. I knew I needed to get treatment, but that became totally disconnected from my will to start the process. My wife was the one who ended up calling the doctor to set things up.

Better to start the process early and as a side bonus not sacrifice so many brain cells to hypoxia.

Have you thought about an at-home sleep study? My wife and I both did that to get our CPAPs prescribed. Just had to wear a band around the chest (with a little unit that read the force of expansion, I presume), a pulse-ox sensor (IIRC), and something else I can't recall. I'm sure it's not perfect, but my doctor recommended it and was happy enough with it.

I'm the greater insomniac in my household, so I was the one to note my wife's snoring and breathing cessations. She felt fine in the morning. A sleep study showed her PO2 levels dipping as low as 76. She's a CPAP user now.

I think of sleep apnea as a bit like chronic high blood pressure: few or no perceptible symptoms until you become a dialysis or stroke patient.

It's a PITA, that's for sure. There were no drugs in mine. But I reasoned that it's only 1 night. I chose a time where I didn't have work the next day. No big deal, it's not like you have to do it for a month straight. Do you not get any time off work at your job?

> my wife tells me I snore and randomly stop breathing

This is bad for her and worse for you. You have an apnea for sure. You’re losing brain cells unnecessarily. Luckily I know your posting history and you can obviously afford them. I can’t! But for your wife’s sake get a home sleep study.

I probably will sometime in 2019 (for totally unrelated reasons having to do with insomniaphobia, I have a pretty odd sleeping arrangement that involves me sleeping mostly upright these days which I'm told has mitigated this problem).

I'm just saying: if I could just buy the damned APAP and try it out, I would do that first. Friends who've gotten sleep studies have uniformly described it as simply a hurdle to getting the actual RX for the machine, and that all the learning and diagnostics happened after they started with the machine.

You can just buy the damned APAP. The gear I use can be had off Amazon for about $700. A Respironics Dreamstation, and a Resmed Swift FX nasal pillow with headgear and quick connect hose. Probably cheaper if insurance covers it, but you don't actually need it.

If you think you can breathe through your nose with your mouth closed, the nasal pillows are nicer. If not, get a mask. They're nice to have anyways, if colds clog your nose.

Weirdly, the nasal pillows don't work for me — my AHI is higher when I use them instead of my nose mask.

Fortunately, the masks/pillows aren't super expensive, so folks can experiment.

You can buy used CPAP/APAP machines from Craigslist or wherever used things are sold. Or so I'm told.

You should do it so your wife can sleep at night instead of hearing your snoring, even if you don't care about being healthy yourself. Sheesh...

There are many, many stubborn guys who refuse to try CPAP machines for years and years, and regret their lost years enormously afterwords. When you get to your sleep doctor, he can tell you what an archetype you are.

> involves me sleeping mostly upright these days

Wait, what? How does that even work? That sounds fascinating.

Also, are you Minbari?

Buy a machine from ebay

My insurance requires 3 at-home failures (as in bad data, etc) before they will even approve an in-lab. I'm sure you can request one if they don't; it's cheaper for them.