5-6 Nov 2012

Charlene went to stay in KKH today for sleep oximetry tests, which was recommended by her sleep doctor.

There has been some changes to Charlene's tolerance level towards cpap after the removal of phenobarbitone. Hence there may be a need to give her oxygen during sleep (gasp! additional equipment!)

Before that, the sleep doctor needed to find out
1. her oxygen levels when she is sleeping
2. the lowest that her oxygen level will fall to when desaturation occurs. This will in turn determine whether Charlene needs to be given oxygen when she is sleeping.
3. the carbon dioxide levels when she is sleeping

The results showed that Charlene continued to have desaturations when she was sleeping; 5 per hr. This has improved since the last test where she had 7 per hr. The good news is even though her oxygen levels dropped, the drops were not critical. Her lowest oxygen level during sleep was 91.
Also, her carbon dioxide levels were normal which meant that even without the cpap, there would be no adverse impact.

So the sleep doctor recommended that we continue to use the cpap. If she cannot tolerate, we can take it off as she will be fine.

We thank God for the reassuring news! And we thank God that we were discharged within a day! (we were prepared to stay till Wed, but our prayers to God worked!)

Continue to pray that God will heal Charlene's sleep apnea. The cpap has lost its effectiveness due to Charlene's mouth breathing. Yet, we can't change to a full face mask as there is a high risk that Charlene will choke on her secretions when she is sleeping. Hence, we are out of options to help Charlene and can only rely on God's healing.