Wagthesam's comments

Wagthesam | 1 year ago | on: Strategies for Shipping Large Projects

Reading a recent post here, I felt like I could add more detail on the strategies and tactics for how to ship at large companies.

After I wrote the article, a lot of it boils down to basic project management. But each of these points I’ve made mistakes on and I don’t personally find any of this that intuitive so I hope this helps others

Wagthesam | 2 years ago | on: Waterloo Style

Funny how school lessons are not applied in the real world. I worked at a Waterloo unicorn, and we had a single refund function that either authorized or denied a refund, with dozens of parameters in the function header

Wagthesam | 3 years ago | on: Poor sleep drove me insane, and my long path to recovery

I have one of these https://www.amazon.com/EMAY-SleepO2-Bluetooth-Overnight-Cont...

I have a similar issue where maybe once or twice a night now my sp02 drops below 90, followed by a spike in my heart rate. From the word of my sleep doctor, that is not normal for a younger person. She used this to try to justify the cost of a psg to my insurance company.

Find a different doctor. Young and fat is not the qualifying criterea. From this entire thread you can get a sense that there are a lot of people suffering out there that have sleep apnea but not fat. Also, a take home sleep study is cheap and easy and covered by insurance.

Wagthesam | 3 years ago | on: Poor sleep drove me insane, and my long path to recovery

that seems like inflated pricing. there are solutions from the internet for hsat (lofta and night owl) that used standardized devices. If you want a psg, there's a place in sacramento (axg sleep diagnostics) that will mail you the psg device for a night, for around 600.

My hsat was covered by insurance, but I had to self fund psg and my insurance wouldn't pay for it. My sleep specialist quoted 3k, I went with axg sleep diagnostics.

Wagthesam | 3 years ago | on: Poor sleep drove me insane, and my long path to recovery

I defer to his expertise for a lot as he's considered one of the top experts in sleep apnea surgery in the world. He's had more cases for example on MMA than aggregate studies in the literature

He considers DISE to show collapse that would not normally occur. Because under dise you are heavily sedated. Like after drinking alcohol, the airway is not the same as a normal state.

Wagthesam | 3 years ago | on: Poor sleep drove me insane, and my long path to recovery

I know about SLIT, but from my research most allergists don't mix in enough to make it comparable to shots. From studies I read you need 30-100x the dose of shots taken in monthly aggregate for it to be comparable. For example Odactra which is fda approved for dust mites is 30x the concentration of a monthly maintenance dose. I am allergic to almost everything, so I imagine it will be too costly to treat properly

Also it is much less regulated as its not fda approved, so the quality you are getting is less certain than shots. I would not be surprised if the majority of SLIT use cases in the US are placebo due to cost constraints outside of the fda approved tablets covered by insurance. Yes studies is one thing and its shown clearly that its comparable, but you need the right concentrations

TBH I am skeptical of startups that operate in this type of environment as theres not enough oversight. For me to be comfortable it would need to be very transparent what is going into the mix

source: https://fairfieldcountyallergy.com/whats-the-story-on-allerg... "Sublingual immunotherapy is not currently covered by health insurance companies in the United States because it is ineffective as it is done here"

Wagthesam | 3 years ago | on: Poor sleep drove me insane, and my long path to recovery

One detail to add that I think was missing. My message is you need to own your diagnosis and treatment. But much of the work has to be done by doctors in partnership. These doctors do not have time to direct your treatment outside their specialities, so you need to own the entire process.

I had a team of specialists:

- Sleep: Dr Sinha (primary), AXG Sleep Diagnostics (for psg), Lofta, and Night Owl

- ENT: Dr. Gerald Kangelaris (nasal surgery), Dr Andrew H. Murr (consult)

- Allergist: Dr Opal Gupta (primary) and Dr Carmen Choy (amazing doctor! consult)

- Gastroenterologist: (upper gi endoscopy), unnamed as I dont recommend

- Sleep apnea surgical expert: Dr Kasey Li (triple board certified, best in the world)

- Primary care (One Medical)

Wagthesam | 3 years ago | on: Poor sleep drove me insane, and my long path to recovery

Yes one thing that I didn't emphasize enough was that I had a team of specialists treating me:

- An ENT and a consulting ENT for a second opinion

- A oral surgeon specializing in sleep apnea

- Two sleep medicine doctors

- Two allergists ( one for shots, one for consult )

- Multiple GP's from one medical

- A gastroenterologist that did an upper gi endoscopy

My message I tried to convey is that you need to own the entire process though. none of the people above will do it for you or do their job beyond their specialty

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