Comment by giardini | Hacker News Reader

Comment by giardini | Hacker News Reader

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I know someone who snored like crazy, would quit breathing at night and was diagnosed with sleep apnea. She got a CPAP and tried to use it for a year. Snoring was worse although it helped her not stop breathing. But it gave her some form of pneumonia or some such and she began coughing all night! Then it spread to daytime. Then everyone around her started getting the cough. I had to take antibiotics to shake off the infection I got from being around her.

Believe me the introduction of CPAP into this person's life was a f*ing disaster for her and everyone who was around her that year! She went to see ~11 doctors, finally quit the CPAP on her own, without any doctor's suggestion. Things got better immediately. Then out of desperation she went to a Chinese herbal doctor. Somehow after that the cough began to die down. I make no claims for Chinese herbal cures - I'm amazed anything worked after that year.

While apnea is real, CPAP looks like a scam to me, for the sleep clinics and especially for the CPAP makers and suppliers.

> While apnea is real, CPAP looks like a scam to me, for the sleep clinics and especially for the CPAP makers and suppliers.

100% not a scam. Was life changing for me, and the two other coworkers I know who are on it.

*"100% not a scam. Was life changing for me, and the two other coworkers I know who are on it."&

Yeah, but so is Jesus to some people.

Well... instantly measurably dropped my blood pressure and stopped me nodding off to sleep while on the way to and from work. But I guess Jesus performs all sorts of objectively measurable miracles too.

I would say that CPAP is more of a Holy Spirit miracle, but why place limits on that?

Your claim is that CPAP gave this person a _communicable_ chest infection, which was then cured by herbal medicine? How could that possibly happen unless your local distilled water supply was contaminated with tuberculosis bacteria?

Improper cleaning maybe. People get Legionnaire's from shitty motel rooms with AC units that don't drain correctly, so it isn't that farfetched for a closed loop respirator full of moisture to harbor nasty pathogens all the same.

Yes, you can get infections from poorly maintained CPAPs (or respirators -- are those a scam, too?) but that's not going to spread to your whole family.

What part of "I make no claims for Chinese herbal cures" did you not understand?

It just underscores how batshit crazy people are and the low quality of some so-called "medical cures". Sometimes that includes "snake-oil salesmen", a category into which I now put CPAP vendors.

As someone who has used one and who has family members that use one, I can tell you they 100% work and it would be insane not to use one once you discover how different your sleep is. You immediately notice a difference, and there is no question the treatment is effective.

What? No, CPAP makes my sleep measurably (literally) better. But yeah, different people react to them in various ways. A relative couldn't keep hers on all night for a month, while I put mine on the first night and slept like the dead, better than I had in years.

That said, I find the pneumonia story a little tough to swallow. Correlation is not always causation. CPAP machines don't spontaneously spawn new diseases. Does she use the humidifier? What water does she use? Does she change it every day?

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