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I am still having 22+ apnoeas per hour. I have bought, probably wasted my money, an anti snore spray. Do you think it will help, along with my bi-pap auto machine. I am getting really upset with my lack of progress. I wear my mask every night. It fits really well with no leaks, and still no better. I am having terrible thoughts that apnoea will be the end of me. I had a stroke, 23 years ago and my father died from a stroke 4 years ago. I go to sleep clinic on Sept 16th. They already know that my apnoeas are still high. Any help would be great.

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Thank you so much, Rosemary. I am already seeing a "trained" counsellor who assures me I'm not silly or not taking responsibility. I have many medical probs. I have type 1 diabetes and use an insulin pump. You have to be very responsible to use  a pump. It's not easy but I have mastered it. Thanks again.
I am so pleased that you have disregarded the negative input. You are clearly doing all of the right things. I hope that this forum will be of real help to you as well. We would be very strange creatures to not find the whole thing worrying. Keep up the good work. Very best wishes to you and lots of success with the cpap / apap. I also bought an apap machine very recently and find it much better than the cpap but it still isn't perfect. We'll get there! Rosemary
Carolyn, you're taking responsibility by having counselling and I wish you all the best in this.  It's the right way to go, especially whilst you're still suffering from sleep deprivation.  Try your best to hang in there until your appointment later this month :)

Ouch! When in hole - even un--anticipated hole - stop digging!

My remarks were meant to be thought provoking, certainly not insulting, so I apologise for the insult you experienced. From the various reactions, I can see that I touched several nerves and thus can know that I was not far off the mark.

Worrying, ladies, is a futile waste of energy. Doing what you can about a situation for now and then letting it go is the way to happiness.

How to stop worrying, just like that? Trust and let go. Ask your counsellor.

Hello Tigers Fan,

 

I see that you still think you have not been "far off the mark". I assure you that worry is a normal human reaction and if you are lucky enough to be able to "let go" with "trust" then I envy you. A clinical psychologist would not probably give this sort of advice, not as such anyway. A behavioural psychologist could help one to lose worry with conditioning. You cannot condition yourself with ease though and often being told to stop worrying just leaves a person feeling even more worried.

It is a bit like being told to not scratch an itch. The itch becomes even more itchy! Telling a person to "pull themselves together" has very much the same effect. Maybe it doesn't happen like that for you but it sure does for me. A clinical psychologist would help a person to reach their own conclusions and not just tell them that they were wasting their energy. I am sure you can see that that sort of advice could be seen as rather arrogant.  

I know that when I am told to not eat something fattening (especially by a skinny doctor) I just feel the need to eat more and more. Probably the reason why I had so much weight lose in the first place! The human mind is an unhelpful thing at times but open criticism is harsh and often counter productive. The combination of stupid human reactions and poor health certainly make it hard for me anyway. Tough I suppose, I am human after all!

I'm sure that you meant your comments in a good way and that your intentions were fine. You have to take care with feelings though and remember that some of us are just a bit touchy. We need to be taken care of when we are sick and words have to be chosen!

I hope you are doing ok as well. Stay happy!

Rosemary     

What I know about clinical and behavioural psychologists lays somewhere between nothing and not a lot - and that is very much how I wish to keep it! Give me holistic psychotherapy and Buddhist philosophy evey time. I got very angry with them at first - how can I just let go? I need pain to measure gain! - until I realised that the only way to change is to let go. The choice is about now or later - why waste time, may as well do it now and not carry this burden any longer.

Whether I am careful with words or not, the fact remains that worry is a waste of energy! What has worry ever achieved? It does nothing, serves no purpose in the world except to give pain. Can you solve a problem by worrying? Can you bring comfort to another by worrying? Give love? Feed the hungry? All those things take the energy that can be wasted on worrying.

If you are sad, depressed, whatever I can witness your experience of those things but I cannot collude with you and join you in that experience. I would hear your pain but then I would let it go and be happy. You experience it as real, I do not. I know that my own pain is not real, it is my creation - it hurts but I know it is not real so let it go, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly - but ever quicker as I see the truth of myself more and more, letting go the falsehoods of who I used to believe myself to be.

We clearly have different philosophies. This is what makes the world go round. People have different views and beliefs. I am pleased that you have found inner peace. I prefer to believe in something else.

I find happiness in helping others and causing them as little pain as possible. I have a severely autistic son who worries all the time about totally unimportant things and he will never find any sort of peace. So there we are. A world full of different sorts of people but we can respect each other even if we don't collude with each other.

This is why we choose our words with care. This is why we don't talk down to people and mock their inadequacies. Those who have responsibilites may worry about those they will leave behind when they die. I am so pleased that you have found a solution to all of these quandries. I stand in awe.

 

Rosemary    

 

  

I used to care for people on the autistic spectrum, both one to one in the community and in groups in a class setting. Some had parents, some didn't and some had parents who never visited. I learned a lot about life and love from these people and especially admired their resilience. They needed more patience from me than I had at first so I also learned to extend my patience and control my impatiernce. They all were getting on with their lives, as we all have to. They seemed to find happiness in small things, as we all do.

All true stuff Tigers. Life can be hard for sure. I set up and have been running a charity for twenty years in my spare time (when not teaching or playing music professionally) to help people going through the same sorts of things I have gone through over the years due to disability and you discover that people often have difficulties which they don't handle well.

Sadly they don't all just get on with their lives. Many are disorientated and frightened of life. All we can do is be patient as you say. Autistic people can often be satisfied with small things though. Humbling.

Poor Carolyn and Kath! We haven't been talking much about anti snoring spray in this discussion have we?

Rosemary  

 

  

I write one thing and you seem to read another! I'm not saying life is tough, I'm saying life presents us with challenges and "growth opportunities"and we can deal with these the hard way or we can choose to tread a lighter path - acceptance and letting go.I say that without ever having been seriously physically challenged - my nickname of "Total Wuss" and with a pain threshold not very far above zero suggest I would have a lot to learn.

It is sad that so many people blindly continue in samsara. I'm not at all sure where autism - or any mental illness - fits with self-fulfillment. I'm sure many would say that it is a result of bad karma from an earlier life but I hold that we are here once only. Fulfillment surely requires an ability to see the world truthfully - but then, can any of us do that?

Samsara, by the way, is also an anti-snoring spray - just not as the thread was about before we hijacked it.

ps - what do you play and teach?

I didn't read another I assure you. It wasn't you saying life is tough, You misunderstood. It was me saying life is tough. Mind you, my statement was ambiguous. There wasn't enough of a gap between the first two sentences! 

I hear you loud and clear about the letting go. I simply reject your philosophy because of human nature. Most people's human nature anyway! I could no doubt be conditioned into believeing your philosophy. I do believe in the not harbouring of rubbish that deserves to be flung out. Things like grudges and sadness are best disposed of but I think my philosophy about this is probably different from yours. (Notice I am not going into detail about this but that is because this thread is about anti-snoring sprays and I already feel badly about having hijacked it - correction - I don't feel badly about it at all because I have let the negative feelings go! Am I learning?  

I am sure that you are right to suspect that none of us see the world truthfully but autistic people such as my son misinterpret just about everything and his life is extremely tough as a result.

Have you ever used Samsara or any other anti-snoring spray? Has anyone answered this question yet? I have tried one of those copper rings on my little finger but no other miracle cures. I haven't tried the sprays but can understand the desire to try anything that might help!

I'm also of the view that we are here once only. I'm not fond of the notion of karma (although I have referred to it when I have thought that someone deserves what they get) but I do like to help people and not for gain. At least, it is gain enough to feel that someone else will have a better time than they might have done.

I teach keyboard and piano in Brighton. I play harpsichord, piano, digital keyboards, cello, guitar and a bit of flute. I play piano professionally mainly and find it easier to play the Rondo in Beethoven's Waldstein now that I have lost nearly eight stone because I can play cross hands again. I tend to play in lots of styles. Classics, rock, pop and a little bit of jazz. My jazz tends to be cliches but I at least understand how to swing the beat.

Do you play anything?

Rosemary

 

 

 

No, you could not be conditioned into believing my philosophy. Mine only works as I experience it, as life teaches me, oftentime with a guide. If it is not true - tested to be true - then I don't accept it. You would have to be the same - and forever in a slightly different place so we are both each others teachers and pupils.

I'm amused that you reject my philosophy - actually, it is not mine, it is hugely borrowed from Buddhist teachings - because of most people's human nature. Most people's human nature - samsara - is the very thing we are journeying to escape.

You put your finger on a knotty problem. How to serve others without gain? A feeling of having helped, done a good thing, de dah show a motivation of selfishness and ego, still trapped in samsara. How to serve others selflessly. Defeats me so far.I thought I had it cracked once, but it turned out to be suppressed resentment.

Your musical abilities put you firmly into the realm of magicality for me! Multi-lingual people the same. It is just beyond my ability to imagine despite the evidence.I've only heard the harpsichord at the opera. I play a very extensive CD collection on an expensive sound system. Eclectic taste but the musicians have to be just that.

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