Currently dealing with severe sleep apnea & the near inability to breathe thru my nose as a younger, athletic in a past life, skinny & thin framed male. Unable to get started w/CPAP due to life instability, & even that isn’t going to fully fix things as I have to have other major surgery that involves surgically removing my completely wrecked scalenes (anterior & middle - scalenes are secondary breathing muscles), a septoplasty, & a large amount of physical therapy & potential other surgery to help with severe muscular issues around/relating to my diaphragm (primary breathing muscle)

I’m affected in most ways he’s mentioned - but one thing I didn’t see is & what in the grand scheme of things is kinda dumb - is that chronic mouth breathing absolutely wrecked my once chisel-sharp jawline. Hoping one day after a few years of breathing thru my nose & postural improvement it will somewhat reappear.

I furthermore got completely shitrekt from the most wildly near-unbelievable thing - I have a mattress (from a company with owners who were HN users & described severe quality control issues with their mattresses that conveniently lined up near the time I purchased it - very fun lawsuit) that was apparently made with a sufficient amount of fiberglass (textile fiberglass, a bit different from insulation you’ve probably seen before) & the mattress leaked a ridiculous amount of fiberglass through both the bottom & top of the mattress. Having carpeted floors, I was vacuuming underneath the mattress for years, not knowing that was sending it into the entire HVAC system of my house. Eventually found out everything was coming from the mattress… & though I could go on, absolute shitshow.

Now, normally this wouldn’t be the worst thing as a young college person typically spends a good amount of time out of their house & in fresh air. I was unfortunately on bed rest, mostly in my room (ground zero of fiberglass mattress biohazard), for around two years as coronavirus canceled my aforementioned major surgery four times over the course of 1.5-2 years.

Reason in mentioning this: a large amount of mattresses HN demographic may find themselves ordering (e.g. on Amazon/the internet in general) are made partially of fiberglass. It’s such a large issue it’s now made it into LA Times articles - I can only recommend anybody check their brand in a google search with “fiberglass mattress” (maybe site:reddit.com as well)

Now, the good news is that it’s typically only an issue if you remove the zipper covering & release it, & you’ll likely quickly notice. Unfortunately in some it will still leak out of the bottom of the mattress over time (shedding, from pine needles like a tree)
& unfortunately for me - mine happened to be an ultra-specific case where the manufacturer didn’t even have a zipper removable cover. It was just a breathable mesh & the fiberglass poked out of both the bottom & top of the mattress, in unbelievable amounts. I’m thankful for my 4k iPhone camera, else documenting it in my situation would’ve been near impossible.

Anyways, fuck you mattress company that used to talk shop on HN. Breathing textile fiberglass shards in my room & entire house for 2+ years wrecked my airways to an unforgivable degree.