So yeah, I scored an 18 on the sleep study test, I was told I had mild sleep apnea and that i'd be forced to wear a cpap for the foreseeable future.
I've never expressed a feeling of being tired, if anything I'm normally hyperactive and I have trouble getting to sleep on time. I tried to use the damn mask for four months, using different masks and techniques on the lowest pressure. All that did for me was cause nosebleeds and interrupt my sleep to where I was essentially being forced to work on a 2 hour nap for an 11-13 hour shift as an OTR truck driver.
They didn't expressly say I had to drive, but they would push me into doing it with what any driver knows as "punishment games with your DM", where they miraculously won't have a load for you in meat patch right in the middle of kansas, or route you to where they know you don't drive.
So yeah, I was driving next to your families and friends for upwards of four months on little to no sleep in a 80,000 pound rig. All of this was due to some soyboy nutjob in congress passing a one-size-fits-all law to trucking.
It didn't matter what I told the DM or doc about how I wasn't getting sleep, or how I couldn't do my job nearly as well without sleep. They kept giving me excuses and just stating "it's not my decision".
"What if I actually hurt someone?" is what I started thinking, I've been a careful driver my entire life and I would rather go back to working warehouse jobs instead of taking the chance of getting someone hurt or worse. Not to mention the second that happens I'd be told "you shouldn't have driven if you didn't feel it was safe!" Like I had a choice, they don't spring up this cpap garbage to you until you're past school and have a $5-8000 USD bill with a 2 year contract tied to you.
Four months I tried to use it, but in reality that was about two months, I just stopped for the final two because I would find myself nearly dozing off at the wheel. I have NEVER dozed off while driving before, I was waking up late, increasingly aggravated at my surroundings, and I found my job a lot harder to complete successfully.
So I quit, nearly 3 years trucking, after going my final year only making $19k usd for the entire year when I only turned down the NY/NJ loads (it was on my application, don't blame me)(I primarily ran meat patch, first two years I made decent money).
Now I'm at home, I was looking to get into another trucking job but I'll have to lose some weight first, currently down 16lb from when I was a trucker and looking good to get rid of cpap.
Sorry for the wall, I just felt that everyone praises this damn machine so much that I had to give the other side of it.
Thanks.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/SleepApnea/comments/fzx4fm/quit_my_job_after_they_forced_me_on_cpap/
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