Experience of "Sleep Study"

Everytime I tell somebody I snore, no one would belive me because I am so slim and relatively young. Actually it was one of my roommates in university who first told me about this embarassing problem. In the next 14 years, it was never a problem for myself, but things changed after my BF and I started living together two years ago. My snoring noise keeps him awake and wakens him up. Sometimes we even considering to sleep in seperate bedrooms, but the dilemma is, we don't want to scarifice the intimacy.

So, in March, I finally brought up this problem to my family doctor, and he referred me to a specialist. Two weeks later, the specialist gave me a simple check and suspected I may have the problem of Apnea, which refers to interrupted breathing which can last 10 seconds or longer. To be sure, he referred me to do a sleep study.

In a Friday evening of middle April, I went to the sleep study center at Bayview/Finch. The nurse was a chubby white lady, very friendly and professional. She used something like wax to stick more than twenty sensors on my head and legs. (With that much of wax, my hairstyle was funkier than the craziest punk.) She also put a mini mic below my nose (to record the snoring), two belts around my chest (to monitor breath) and a clip on my finger (to monitor the oxygen in my body). And then I was led into one of the six tiny bedrooms and.....go to sleep. There was also a night-vision camera in the room.

As you may expect, the sleep was not very good because of the uncomfortablenss. In the moring (about 5:00AM), I paged the nurse because I needed to pee, and after that she said the study was done. Before I left, I filled out a questionaire about how I felt about my sleep (i.e, how often I waked up, etc).

As arranged in advance, two weeks later I saw the specialist for the second time. Surprisingly, he did not read my sleep study report until I sit on the chair. He quickly browsed it and told me I had 20 times of breath interruption per hour while a normal person should have fewer than 10 times. His conclusion: I have medium Apnea.

What should I do? He provided following options:
1) Sew a pocket on my back of my sleepwear and put a tennis ball in it, so I can't sleep on my back;
2) Use a speical pressure air mask which will keep my air way open all the time. It is not very necessary for my case and it is very inconvenient;
3) Use mouthpiece which the patient puts in mouth to prevent snoring (I can ask my dentist for it but it is not covered by OHIP);
4) Have a surgery, which is covered by OHIP. I need to stay one night at hospital and recovery at home for ten days. It could be painful.

My decision? Not made yet....