When Carlos gets overloaded (with fluid) he doesn't sleep well. Probably because he stops breathing for 10-20 seconds at a time. Doesn't make for sound sleep for me either. I end up waking a lot to check and make sure he is breathing. So probably sleep apnea...the Mayo clinic had also done some testing that indicated his oxygen saturation drops during the night. So when we tease Carlos that his brain isn't perfusing well, it's possible that that is really the case at night!
Today the doctor said that in Stage IV heart failure (or end-stage heart failure - which sounds incredibly scary), a certain breathing pattern may occur which doesn't respond to typical therapies for sleep apnea but he says he has other things that can be done.
So Carlos is heading off now to do the sleep study.
No comments:
Post a Comment