AMEN 2012: Testimony

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

AMEN 2012 Seminars

Jennifer Schwirzer

Cutting Edge Counseling: Clinical Experience in the Healing Power of the Gospel

Michael Orlich

Adventist Health Study

Keith Hanson

Joel Sabangan

Spirituality in Patient Care

Rachel Nelson

The Making of a Medical Missionary

Joe Nozaki

Legacy

Rod Willey

Sleep Apnea and Drowsy Devotions

Okay, well it's good to be with everyone here today and a blessing to be a part of Amen.

I've been to a couple of their times that they've had early on, quite involved with the ministry in our own area.

And there's, I haven't been able to get here as much as I would like.

But it's been fun to get to know some of you better and meet some new friends and move forward.

I'm going to have to talk pretty fast to get this through.

And so I would like to just begin with this session by just telling you that I was a general dentist for some 27 years, been done all the things that were here.

I found something that just became my passion about 3 years ago.

And that was the obstructive sleep apnea.

I started off with a five-year course in functional orthodontics and with USDI.

Did a lot of orthodontics throughout the years and studying how childhood development and everything goes with that.

And then that kind of led me into orophacial pain and treatment of TMD.

Did that for many years along with my general practice.

And then when I started learning about obstructive sleep apnea, it was like a light bulb came on as I started realizing all the things that I had learned throughout all these years just all fit together so perfectly.

And it makes such incredible sense when we realize how the airway is formed and structured, and the incredible responsibility and privilege that we have as dental professionals to be able to make a difference in a person's life and impact them in a way that we never could with other things.

I mean, it's incredible to be able to make someone's smile better.

And yeah, I've waited and given them the mirror and seen the tears come down and all that.

And it is very exciting to have that, very rewarding.

But to be able to extend a person's life, to be able to save lives, and to be able to have patients come and, with tears in their eyes, grown men, and look at you and say, doctor, thank you so much for changing my life.

I mean, it's 1 of those moments where the chills go up your spine, it makes such an incredible difference.

I'd like to begin just talking about drowsy devotions, in particular, the Garden of Gethsemane.

We were at the Garden of Gethsemane here just a year ago.

My wife Donna and I went on a tour, and we went across the Kedron Valley.

And as you look at the Garden of Gethsemane, you're looking across the valley, and you see Jerusalem, the walls of Jerusalem on the other side.

And you can't help but, when you're standing there, looking through that whole thing, to just be overcome with emotion, realizing that this is the point where Jesus was at when he, on Thursday night after the supper, went out with his disciples and went up to the garden.

And Then he told all the other disciples to stay there.

And he took on with Peter, James, and John, asked them to go with him.

He tells them to wait here and watch and pray as he goes a little further.

Peter, James, and John, as Jesus goes and pleads to the Father about if there's any other way, if this cup can be withdrawn from me, then so do it.

And he says, can't you just stay awake for an hour?

In the actual Greek, Actually, the word means stay awake.

And so he goes back again, and he's praying again.

And he comes back a second time, and he finds him sleeping again.

And he wakes him up, and he says, can't you please just stay awake?

And he realizes the impact that is on there.

And he comes back a third time, finds him sleeping again, and he tells them, it's time to go.

And I've got to tell you, we don't know what was going on.

We don't know if it was just basic they didn't get it.

We don't know if they had a lot of fatigue that day or what was happening.

But the point of the matter is, they had drowsy devotions for whatever time.

When you see when you have things that is causing you to not have the energy level that you should have, it's going to affect every aspect of your life, including your spiritual walk.

You're going to be having a hard time staying awake in church.

You're going to have a hard time praying or falling asleep during prayer, falling asleep in your devotions.

It can affect every aspect of your life, including your spiritual walk.

So what causes all this sleep deprivation?

Is it because from stress, having a busy lifestyle that's out there?

Or it could be something with a sleep disorder that is on there.

As we're looking at that, we have found now, and this is actually an old statistic.

The old statistic was that there was 18 million people that have obstructive sleep apnea in the United States, of which 90% goes undiagnosed.

That has now been upgraded to 30 million people.

We all know that there is a epidemic, obesity epidemic, in this country, don't you?

You've all seen the map of the obesity levels and what it used to be that was considered obesity back in the 60s, and then 70s, and 80s, and 90s.

And with a fast food nation comes a lot of obesity.

The word apnea just means without breath.

It literally means stopping the breathing for a 10 second period or more while you sleep.

So when you begin to go to sleep and you have an obstructive airway and you stop breathing, if you stop for over 10 seconds, it's considered to be an apneic moment.

Sometimes you just have very shallow breathing and considering something called hypopneus, which is very shallow breathing, not breathing well, but you're still breathing some.

At any rate, I have a little animation video that I'd like to show you here that goes.

So if you think about what's going on here as you see this little animation, you begin to go into the different levels of sleep, starting with a very light twilight sleep.

As you begin to go into the deepest level of sleep, the muscle tone goes away.

That's the point where if you pick up a child and he's loose as limp as a noodle, that's the type of sleep we're looking at.

So when you go into that sleep, the muscle tone begins to go away.

You get into this point where you have a partially blocked airway causing some snoring.

Continues to block out until it's completely blocked out.

At that point, it becomes a very important thing.

The medulla, the brainstem, has to scream at you and start telling you to breathe.

As it's sitting here saying, come on, breathe, come on, wake up, wake up, you've got to breathe.

It'll kick you out of that deep sleep into a lighter level of sleep.

Or you may not wake up at all, but it's kicking you out of that deep sleep.

Series

AMEN 2012 Seminars

Sleep Apnea and Drowsy Devotions

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Breakout Session B

Bridging the Gap

1h 4m

Dental Track

The Unique Challenges of Sharing Christ in the Dental Office

46m

ASI 2011 Seminar: Health

Energizing Your Witness: The Adventist Lifestyle Message Rightly Utilized

1h 19m

AMEN 2009 Breakout Seminars

Harnessing the Resources of the Church in Medical Evangelism

1h 36m

AMEN 2010 Plenary Sessions

Holistic Medicine in the US - Passing Fad or Permanent Fixture?

51m

Dental Track

How to Overcome the Greatest Disease to Inflict Man

51m

AMEN 2011 Plenary Sessions

Every Practice a Lifestyle Center

42m

ASI 2013 Plenary Sessions

ASI Members in Action

1h 57m

Mark Finley: Medical Evangelism

Medical Evangelism, Part 2

38m

AMEN 2010 Plenary Sessions

Going All Out with Witnessing: Is that Your Heartbeat Doctor?

35m

AMEN 2009 Plenary Sessions

Right Arm of the Gospel

1h

Sound Doctrine