Traveling with OSA

I can't sleep on international flights. Travelling with OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnea) is brutal. 

For your comfort,  airlines decrease the air pressure inside the cabin. This can, quite literally, kill someone with OSA.

You see,  some of your friends who snore, snore in the extreme.  Their asophogas cannot hold up the weight of their neck when unconscious and collapses under the stress. They suffocate themselves until their body goes into survival mode, sending a shot of adrenaline through their system to wake up. ...They fall back asleep and...repeat.

When I was diagnosed with OSA my senior year of college, I averaged over 90 Apneas per hour.  An apnea doesn't even register until you stop breathing for 10 seconds or more. Some of my apneas lasted around 90 seconds.

Try it out for yourself: hold your breath for ten seconds.  How do you feel?  That is the minimum. Now,  try 90 seconds. Then,  with varying lengths, repeat this over the next hour.  You have 88 to go.

Imagine doing that for 5-6 more hours, every night.

Surgical solutions are not as effective as one might hope,  but a simple answer is to increase the air pressure inside your throat. It counteracts the weight & voila! A restful night's sleep.

But wait, strap a tube to your nose and force air down your throat. ...oh, and then fall asleep.  It sounds brutal,  but in all reality,  one you've established the routine,  it is life-changing.

Now, back to the airlines lowering air pressure in the cabin. Lowered air pressure means a dramatic increase in apneas. So, no, I try not to sleep on planes. Not because i think I'm going to die, but because it becomes a struggle and leaves me worn out.

And,  really,  would you want to sit on a plane next to someone who is suffocating themselves for much of the flight? 

The silver lining in this is that, on long trips to Europe,  as long as I hydrate,  I sleep like a baby when i arrive and wake up fresh the next morning raring to go!

...just have to make it to 10pm the night I arrive.