Published: May 08, 2008 09:55 am      

VIDEO: Tour the Lockport Sleep Medicine Center

Kathleen D’Angelis simply could not sleep.

The Lewiston resident was absolutely exhausted. She would go for as many as five nights in a row without rest and then finally collapse in sleep. But, she never, ever felt rested.

When her cousin was diagnosed with sleep apnea and learned that it was a disorder than ran in families, D’Angelis finally considered going in and getting tested.

She went twice to the Sleep Medicine Centers of WNY in Lockport. On both occasions she spent the evening in a comfortable bedroom, hooked up to monitors that registered on machines in a nearby computer room. The investment of time was far less trouble than the days spent feeling like the walking wounded.

The tests showed that she woke up about 60 times a night with respiratory distress. The lack of oxygen to her system was affecting her organs, she said.

“I also had a condition called sleep paralysis. Basically it means your body is asleep but your mind is fully awake,” she said. “It comes from severe sleep distress.”

The staff at Sleep Medicine Centers sent her home with a small sleep mask which, placed over her nose, opened her oxygen pathways and allowed her to rest.

“It’s been a godsend. My life has changed drastically,” she said.

“I think I’m more patient. I feel so much more energetic. I’m losing about a pound a month,” she added. Other improvements to her health are the complete disappearance of her acid reflux problems and her restless leg syndrome.

D’Angelis’s cousin, Lisa Kempke, of Lancaster, who originally alerted D’Angelis to the genectic spread of sleep apnea, has also found relief from a variety of physical symptoms since her diagnosis at the Lockport center, including reduced blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Kempke, a physical therapist, never dreamt she had sleep apnea until a nephew slept over during a blizzard in 2006.

“He noticed that I got up five times a night,” said Kempke. The next morning he told me, you have sleep apnea.”

“I got the machine and for the first time in my life I’m sleeping good,” she said. She also had her two kids tested — they had sleep apnea as well — and she contacted her cousin, D’Angelis about the genetics connection.

After D’Angelis went for tests, her five-year-old daughter, Elizabeth was also tested, and the child also received the sleep apnea diagnosis.

Elizabeth, who used to tell her “mom, I’m so tired, I don’t want to play,” is now energetic and happy, just like her mother.

Eventually, more of the D’Angelis family got tested. “Of the five siblings in my family, four have been diagnosed with sleep apnea. Three of four grandchildren were tested and all had it as well,” she said.

Dr. Daniel Rifkin, a co-owner of seven sleep centers in Western New York, started his medical career as a neurologist. The expansion into sleep disorders has been gratifying, he said.

“In neurology we deal with a lot of chronic illness,” he said, including Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease. “We don’t do a lot of fixing as neurologists.”

Sleep medicine is different, he explained. “Someone can come in with problems and we fix them from stem to stern. They come back feeling great. It’s very gratifying over the years.”

Contact editor Michele DeLuca at693-1000, ext. 157.