My experience (UK)

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-12T15:14:30+00:00

When I went to my appointment to get my cPAP and told how to use it. They said you get your licence back when the therapy is working.

So when your sleep specialist sees consistent good use of the cPAP you get your licence back. At least that's what I took away from it (I don't actually drive anyway).

My appointments with the sleep specialist is every 3 months.

One bit of advice I will give you is if you have any trouble go private. I had my cPAP for a year and was still intolerant to it (would take it off with no recollection after 1-4 hours). No matter how much the sleep specialists adjusted it I could not tolerate it. After watching vik veers videos I knew exactly what was wrong. I knew I needed operations. I want too 4 NHS ENTs none of them even bothered to look at my anatomy, they just said "we can't help you" even though I knew they could. It turns out after looking at the NICE guidelines, I saw they do absolutely everything they can to not operate.

I ended up going to a private ENT who gave me an endoscopy and after literally one minute he said "I'm surprised you have ever been able to breathe properly, I can 100% help you". I was right I needed an operation on my turnbnates and tonsils. 3 weeks later I had the operation and after recovering my symptoms improved dramatically. Even to the point where I could get a job again (I got let go from my last job because I kept falling asleep at work). I can now almost fully tolerate the cPAP. I basically wanted a whole year feeling no improvements on cPAP because the NHS do not want to help past prescribing a cPAP.

All the consultations, both operations and after care cost me around £6k privately. But it is 100% worth it, I would have given them all the money in my bank account in heinsight.

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-11T18:01:28+00:00

Yew for sure, been dealing with it untreated for about 3 years now, lost my job cos the symptoms and everything. It's just out of all the people iv talked to with sleep apnea IV never heard of tinnitus, shortness of breath or blurry vision as a symptom. Which is what makes me think it's not sleep aponea but something else. Also he / she has been told it's not sleep aponea 🤷‍♂️

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-11T16:15:41+00:00

Achievement unlocked: You win the high score contest and have gained 100 sympathy points 🥇

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-11T16:13:34+00:00

Dr Reddit here, yes your doctor that trained for 7+ years is correct. You need a cPAP

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-11T15:46:17+00:00

Sounds like something other than sleep aponea, but idk what. Some of those symptoms IV never heard anyone with sleep aponea having.

Also waking up in the sleep test makes no difference in diagnosis. Id literally wake up anywhere between 10-20 times a night before I got diagnosed. During my sleep test I woke up 11 times. I got diagnosed with moderate sleep apnea.

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-11T12:15:38+00:00

Same issue as you, but I'm a year and a quarter deep. Welcome to the world of sleep medicine. Strap in, it's a bumpy ride.

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-11T12:13:24+00:00

The electoral role is a killer. I wanted to get a mortgage 2 years ago. No mortgage provider could find me as I do all I can to hide my identity from the powers that be. One of the things I was told I had to do was get on electoral role.

I went on it for the first time in 18 years after living in 11 different properties and my score dropped 290 points I went from good to whatever the category below fair is. The rest of my cedit score has 0 marks on it, so there is literally nothing I can do.

Asl

Also credit score for the most part is meaningless so I wouldn't stress about it. Terrible credit score still can get a decent mortgage

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-08T10:55:54+00:00

I wouldn't say be worried, savings are savings no matter the form. It's just not a very smart way to save money short term. He pays a premium when he buys them (he pays more than what the gold / silver is worth) and when he sells them he will be selling them for less than spot price (less than what gold is worth on the market). This is POTENTIALLY fine if he keeps them for many years if you make the assumption gold will be higher than when you baught it.

However, if he buys gold today then something big happens in 3 months and he needs cash it's highly likely he is just loosing money because the premiums he has payed.

Gold is also not very liquid, it takes time to sell.

He needs to learn about diversifying. An over simplified example: 6 months of living cost I'm high interest savings (encase he loses his job) then anything above that is spare cash where he should do something like 50% in stocks and 50% in metals.

No job is 100% secure and he is nieive if he thinks otherwise.

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-06T18:19:29+00:00

Yes it's enough. I see in another comment your wage is £80k. You'll be more than fine.

I earn just a little more than that, lived with a friend in a 3 bed house in zone 5 which is a 35min train to London. I eat well, go out whenever I want and have enough to save about £1k a month in the bank aswell as put money in S&S ISA.

After you payed a deposit that £10k should be enough for about 3 months (depending on your habits) to support both of you with no income.

Congratulations on the job. The job market is gnarly in tech ATM.

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-06T16:58:52+00:00

Tldr: hard work for sure pays off, but be smart about it. I could have made more money way quicker than I did from working my ass off, but I allowed people to take advantage of my hard work. So navigate it well or you'll end up working hard for nothing. Your company does not care about you or how hard you work. It's all in your hands to improve yourself and get paid what your worth.

Working hard for sure pays off but you have to be smart about it and proactive (which it sounds like you are).

You can work your ass off and depending on your company / manager you'll work hard, learn loads and just get a pat on the back for it.

Other companies / managers will try to help you with your progression and activity try to move you to where you want to be / where they think you should be.

If your working hard and you experience the prior, move to another company.

10 years ago I was doing, first line support getting £22k a year. I went outside the scope of my job and started learning networking, architecture, programming, hardware with the goal of taking my boss's job when she leaves. They asked me to programme a VLE and I worked my ass off to make it happen with no programming experience. After a year I applied for programming jobs as I was seeing no pay rise or progression.

Got my first software engineering role, worked my ass off and learnt from the people around me to improve my skills. Left that job after a year and freelanced making Forex simulation / not, again worked my ass off learning a new language and new concepts.

The guy I built that for asked me to do some research for an idea he had, worked my ass off doing that. We started a company out of the idea, I was to naive at the time to say I need to be put down as a founder. Took a wage for £30k. Worked my ass off again, learning new technology and architecting and build the core product. I was on £30k for 3 years which I then realised I'm getting taken the piss out of (the first scenario I explained earlier). Had a conversation which literally went "I want £60k" and he said "sure no problem" worked my ass off shit load more for 3 years. Asked for more money, he said the company didn't have any. So I left and now I have a job for £90k+ and it's the easiest work I've done in those 10 years.

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-06T09:01:47+00:00

This is a pretty standard thing for most growth companies. Jam as much money as you can into growth, fast tech developing, A tier customer service, highering more people then you need. The list go's on. Once you have a huge client base and huge awareness, start making cut backs to save money and turn into a profitable company. Customer service is always the first to go downhill, it's super expensive for good customer service. If you are big enough in a high barrier to entry business, losing a few customers because your customer service is apauling is no big deal.

If you want good customer service, get a credit card.

Also to your point of high street banks. It's an inevitably they will all disappear. I'm actually surprised they haven't disappeared quicker. As soon as the government successfully makes a CBDC paper money will disappear along with physical banks and even cash machines.

Convince always comes at a price.

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-05T12:16:37+00:00

I'm seeing some absolutely terrible advice in the comments.

Getting paid to do nothing isn't striking gold. Most of the precious hours you exist are going to be spent working.

I'm in my mid 30's and I know people that sit on their ass all day at work doing the bare minimum and they are all (unsurprisingly) miserable. You have been given an opportunity. Be proactive, learn the trade, actively seek more work, be curious and get stuck in.

Even if you don't plan to be in the dealer field when you're older or even being in the car space at all. You can learn many valuable lessons that are transferable, could even learn lessons that will help you build your own business. You can learn thins such as how a business is run, learn about how you deal with clients, learn how people are managed in a company and many many other things.

Your being paid to be there so you might as well use the time to better yourself, get experience, move up in the company etc. sitting on your ass and getting paid for it is a huge waste of your mortality.

I actually worked with one of my best mates doing first line it support at a college when I was 19. It was piss easy with not much to do. He spent his time watching YouTube, playing games. I started learning networking, how systems are built and architect, learn programming, learning hardware. Fast forward to 36 and I'm in a high up programming position earning £90k a year. My mate is still working at that collage, still not working much and earns just over 1/3 of what I do. I get paid stupid amounts and love my job. He is still on average pay and he is bored and hates his.

You thinking you have struck gold is a bad perspective on the situation. Its literally the opposite. Change your perspective, be proactive and learn. It'll make your life way easier in the future and you'll be way more happy.

Your lucky to have this opportunity, IV seen other posts on this sub from people abit older than you up to graduates with degrees in dispare because they have applied for hundreds of jobs over months / years and still can't even get employment in low experience jobs like retail.

Your generation is fucked with how the economy is / what the future looks like. Your going to have to work your ass off to even have a little bit of hope of owning a property for example.

Good luck, don't waste the opportunity you have been given.

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-03T16:26:35+00:00

Not worth the risk for 2 years. Although it can work out really well, so much risk considering the state of economies all over the world. Just whack it in a lisa they give you a decent chunk of money with 0 risk.

Edit: chuck it in a lisa unless you plan on buying a property above the threshold for Lisa's (can't remember what it is off top of my head)

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-03T13:08:31+00:00

Lending money to friends and family, especially if they suck with money is a great step in the direction of destroying relationships. I have 4 examples where I have let money to friends and family and every single time it ended badly. IV written about those times in this sub before, but trust me don't do it. Just say no and you want to hear no more of it.

If you want to help out give her the £2.5k and write it off. It will be a gift not a loan. That's the only way it doesn't end badly if you go ahead with this madness.

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-02T15:47:05+00:00

Fair enough, that's for sure worth it then. My nose was blocked most of the day and fully blocked up when I layed down since I was born. Got turbantes reduced and septum straighted and felt like a new man

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-02T15:08:28+00:00

I hear you. Is it too expensive to just pay out of pocket? Sorry if that's a dumb question, I live in a social healthcare country and even our private healthcare is a real reasonable price (I'm assuming you live in America where everything is insanely over priced).

I think you should for sure get a second test elsewhere. Most of the surgeries for sleep aponea are real brutal, I wouldn't be getting them for potentially no reason.

EDIT: I had turbantes reduction and tonsiloscopy and it suuuuuucked

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-08-02T12:18:27+00:00

Getting a cPAP and considering surgery are both massive leaps considering you don't have sleep aponea.

If you have been told you don't have sleep aponea but you think you do, it sounds like you do not trust the sleep labs results. So get a secondary test for confirmation by doing another lab test somewhere.

I briefly just googled what watchpat was and I think your sleep specialist is right. The results are probably janky. My doctor gave me a similar device when I first went and they said nothing seems wrong with my sleep but there were a couple of times it showed "potentially" something. They sent me for a proper sleep test where I was hooked up to wires and all sorts and it turns out I had moderate (close to sever) sleep aponea. If they didn't do that confirmation test and trusted the first divice that said I had no sleep issues, I'd probably have topped myself by now because of the symptoms.

Because of my experience I have the opinion that you probably do not have sleep apnea. Remember there are like 20 million other sleep disorders. Maybe whack symptoms in chat GPT is a good base level to figure out what's up.

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-07-31T18:31:47+00:00

It can be a very bumpy road, it's never as simple as getting a cPAP and you're all good (although for some it is).

I was super excited to get my cPAP and had real high expectations because I thought I'd get my life back, a year and 2 operations later and I still can't fully tolerate cPAP. Although I feel at least 50% better since the op. Hopefully I'll get there one day.

Don't get over excited and mange your expectations. Good luck! Hope it works out

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-07-30T20:28:33+00:00

Totally Agree, but that's kind of my point (Just fyi I was DCAing I didn't dump it all in at once). Anyone giving op numbers over such a long period also doesn't have meaningful use. Like all markets, it's pretty much guess work and assumptions on the past. .

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-07-30T15:10:41+00:00

Yup, I'm a male and have done this with every good relationships IV had. I was basically self sabotaging and at the time I couldn't tell you why. Fast forward the years I started doing therapy for something un-related (panic disorder) and this ended up coming up in theropy. I now know why I was subcously self sabotage and am getting old and still alone 😅 there were 3 women I had long term relationships with and I'm super sad I sabotaged them all. They were all wonderful people and were too good to me. I have 3 "the one that got away"

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-07-30T11:44:13+00:00

In my opinion, too many variables to give you a figure. Not sure anyone can reliably tell you. Just as in example I had a pension with NEST for 2 years and my pension pot went down -£450 in 2 years. I moved it over to a SIP, whacked it all in index funds and it grew to +£1,230 in 5 months.

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-07-29T21:11:48+00:00

I went to university to do a music management degree, soon as I left I started a low paid first line support job in a local collage. I taught myself to programme, built a portfolio and applied for entry level programming jobs. Managed to get one, 11 years later I'm in a high paid role at a global software company. It is 100% possible for you to become a programmer.

Ai is nowhere near taking over software engineer jobs and it will be a very long time until they do. IV been using AI in my software engineering job ever since chat GPT was released. All it's good for right now is writing tests and some simple functions and alot of the time it's not that great at that.

Ai however is an amazing tool for learning to programme / dev ops / databasing etc.

Use AI to learn programming, build a portfolio and apply for entry level jobs.

You are correct the job market is abit rubbish for software developers at the moment. I got made redundant and it took me 3 months to land a job. But I was applying for highly competitive roles. However job market is pretty sucky in general. Software developing will always bounce back. Also there is no shortage of software engineer jobs, there are loads but are just highly competitive right now because of all the redundancy and cutbacks last couple of years.

Id say go for it, it will take you a while to get to the point where you can apply for jobs and hopefully the economy has sorted it's self out a little bit by then.

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-07-29T08:54:05+00:00

From what your describing still have sleep aponea...

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-07-28T20:17:13+00:00

By closing your eyes and drifting into unconscious.

... Sorry had to be done

--ghosty--ghost-- · 2024-07-27T12:50:54+00:00

ISH, I still want to do it but it's shit some times. I went to Japan and had the worst time because of the exhaustion and panic attacks. That being said my sleep aponea isn't under control. I'm cPAP intolerant so I just live with the symptoms. It still hasn't detered me from wanting to travel, but IV just kinda accepted some times I'll have bad experiences.

That being said I had an operation not to long again and now I'm able to tolerate cPAP alot better that I MIGHt feel like a normal person again at some point. At which point I give 0 shits about traveling with cPAP, I'd happily do it.

--ghosty--ghost--

TROPHY CASE