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Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH) provides inpatient and community-based mental health care for people living in Bolton, the city of Manchester, Salford, Trafford and Wigan and a wide range of specialist mental health and substance misuse services across Greater Manchester, the north west of England and beyond. We also provide Health and Justice Services in a number of custodial settings.
Website: https://www.gmmh.nhs.uk/
Twitter: @GMMH_NHS
Facebook: @GMMentalHealth
Instagram: @gmmh_nhs
I didn’t have a clue what was going on I just thought it was normal I was tired all the time really dragging myself getting more and more depressed with things tiredness is such a key part of so many different mental health problems they say oh it’s just cuz you’re tired
It’s not cuz I’m tired it’s cuz I have a medical condition even though I sleep it’s just a nap on and off I was so tired thought it was just me it was just because of my other health problems sleep at me as a cond where the
Muscles of the throat relax during sleep so the airway closes and that will briefly wake you up during sleep even if you might not necessarily be aware of that happening it starts off with heavy snoring then it progresses to snoring with silent periods in it results in tiredness during the day person becoming
A danger on the road a danger when they’re using heavy machinery you’re also develops an increased risk of getting heart problems developing diabetes getting high blood pressure and makes weight control very difficult you’re cognitive functioning if your sleep isn’t going well then you won’t be performing at your best it’ll be more
Difficult to regulate your mood if you’ve not slept properly occurs predominantly in overweight males but not exclusively it can happen from children very small children to senior adults sometimes people realize they have sleep apnea because they are sleepy during the daytime um sometimes their partner will hear them in bed sort of
Snoring and then stopping breathing uh but sometimes there’s not really very many symptoms and so someone can go on with sleep apneia for a really long time and not realize that they have it serious sleep apne would occur in about 4% of the population and they are the
Ones who really do need help rates of sleep apnea are quite high in the general population and it’s not detected as often as maybe it should be but they are even higher in people with severe mental illnesses frequently depression anxiety stress related issues often come
Up with the sleep apne as a cause or maybe a result of their disorders and it is important that we get on top of those because we can often help very much with this at first I thought I had to sleep at the hospital the assessment was a bit
Scary nope not for me thanks I just don’t think I can do this sometimes there’s a perception that having the assessment is going to involve going to a sleep lab and sleeping in a strange place and that’ll be really scary and complicated but actually what happens in
Real life is that there’s usually a kit sent out you wear it to sleep in and it’s actually much more straightforward Than People imagine it’s noninvasive non painful and once it’s been put on it’s very easy to wear and you tend to forget that it’s on after it’s been there for 2
Or 3 minutes and most people can sleep very easily at home with the thing on the tests are not that difficult to do once we get to someone who may have sleep apnea and find out if they have it then there is actually an effective treatment and in some cases that’s
Lifechanging it was very easy actually there was a breathing tube I just forgot about it after a while when I eventually did it at night with all the gear on not only did it measure my heartbeat but it also measured my breathing my pulse that was fine I didn’t think that was a
Problem treatment for sleep apne can be threefold first of all it can be weight control if a person is overweight inevitably we’re going to ask them to lose weight for those people who don’t have the serious sleep apnea we can send people to the dentist and he will make a
Mandibular device that’s a thing like a sports person’s mouth guard and stops the snoring and is quite good for treating the moderate and Mild sleep apneas or you can go on to CPAP which is the predominant method of treating sleep AC here you’re hooked up to this machine I
Did not like the mask I thought about what people would think my wife was very pleased with the result I don’t think it’s possible to like it at first in the end it’s not that bad the main Treatment available for sleep apnea is continuous positive airway pressure or CPAP um and
This involves wearing a mask where it pressurizes the air to kind of keep your airway open while you’re sleeping and if you regard the that Airway as being a bicycle tube all we do with the CPAP machine is to pump that tube up just put
A little bit of air pressure in for many that can be claustrophobic to start with and in the initial stages it is very difficult to sleeper with it is hard to get used to so some people kind of are reluctant to even try it but actually a
Lot of people once they’ve tried it it they really take to it and it can really improve their sleep and they feel so much more refreshed in the daytime usually it takes two nights before you can sleep with the machine but if you can persevere with that treatment if you
Can keep the mask on the face all night for those two nights on the third night you will sleep and if you’ve put the mask on before that third night or before that third night sleep and I can almost guarantee that in the morning when you wake up you’ll feel like a
Brand new person to quote a couple of my patients they have said that it is a lifechanging event to be used to seep and to wake up feeling so bright and so Breezy and having a lot of their symptoms resolved in a very very short period of time but it is difficult to
Start with we make no secret of that but if you’re prepared to put that little bit of effort in at the start then you’ll get huge benefit in the end sleeping well has such an impact in my life when you’ve been depressed for two years there’s a real feeling of
Helplessness a lot of social stuff have been burned it’s just in your head how you perceive it don’t have absolute exhaustion anymore it impacts on quality of life in a way you don’t understand before the treatment I just realized how tired I was after a month depression is
A lot easier than it was before I’m able to do different activities I’m out with friends still don’t like the treatment but it definitely changed my life