Comment

Comment by Jeffrey Donaldson on November 2, 2011 at 2:36pm

Brittany. I'm glad that this was caught early in your life. Sleep apnea can take a toll on your body over years of being undiagnosed. This will give you a headstart on getting proper treatment for it. There are many options for treatment. If you have to get used to a mask, it may take some time, but you will in time. If you don't find your doctor to be helpful, don't get discouraged. Find another. There are some excellent doctors out there so don't give up. The one I found just happend to be a pioneer in the field and knew more about sleep apnea than most doctors even knew about it existance. He is a neurologist and I think is probably the best suited kind of doctor for sleep issues.

Good luck and keep us up to date on how your treatment is going.

Comment by Brian Katzung on November 2, 2011 at 12:21pm

Hi Brittany, and welcome.

I'm sorry you had to find out that apnea can just as easily affect fit young women as fat old men (and everyone in between). Sometimes it's simply your individual anatomy (shape and/or tendency to collapse) and there is no other reason (for the obstructive apneas that is; I guess you could say the centrals are "all in your mind" :-) ).

I'm actually way more sensitive to sleep schedule disruptions than pre-CPAP (just a couple of years ago). I think now that I can actually sleep, I'm more dependent on it.

It's pretty common for their to be an adjustment period. If you're lucky, it may be a short as a week or two. For others, it may be years.

Make sure you have (or find) a mask that works really well for you. If it leaks significantly, that can wake you up, dry out your eyes, etc. (I can only use nasal pillows; everything else leaks and/or moves my teeth and changes my bite!)

Comment by Brittany on November 2, 2011 at 11:48am

I'm Brittany, I live in Connecticut and im 23years old.
I was diagnosed with obstructive and mixed apneas. I went to the doctor after my fiance noticed a change in my sleeping patterns over the last year that then led to night terrors. (Rediculous right!? heh) I also had a bad run in with Mono about a year and a half ago and have never felt quite right since.
The doctor doesn't quite know yet what is causing the problem. I have no tonsils to speak of because they were removed as a child, my blood pressure tends to run very low (96/62) I am very active person and am in my target range if not only a point or two high for my target BMI. Im a photographer on the weekends, and a full time college student so no sleep has always been a normal thing for me. Pulling all nighters was always OK. Now i sleep for 8 hours and still find myself exhausted in class.
I am thoroughly freaked out about all of this and have only had my machine for about a week. During which time I think im sleeping even less than I was before. :-/

 

As of late I am all about trying to navigate my way through this information overload and getting things back to as normal as possible. I have already read some helpful things on this site and decided to join to see what else I can find here. I am just feeling very overwhelmed.

Comment by Mary Z on June 24, 2011 at 11:18am

Claire, I forgot to say it takes some of us longer than others to experience contined improvement  A few people never get over that daytme sleepiness.  I am one of those and take Nuvigil for wakefulness.

Comment by Mary Z on June 24, 2011 at 11:15am

Claire, please talk to your doctor (a sleep doctor) about the continued lack of improvement in your symptoms.  If you are not using a machine (besides O2) for your central apneas you may need something called an ASV machine which senses lack of respiratory effort and assists your breathing until you resume normal respirations on your own.  Unless your central apneas were very minimal, they should be treated.  Regard my advice as coming from a layperson, not a sleep specialist.  You should feel the improvement you felt the first week consistently.  Keep us posted and good luck.

Comment by Claire on June 24, 2011 at 2:21am

I am glad to find this new users forum as I have been totally lost since being diagnosed about 2 months ago.

I have literally dragged myself through life since 18 years old (and a bad case of Mono). Any mention of the extreme fatigue brought no suggestions from doctors so I stop telling them. I did mention it to my doctor in
February and he suggested testing for sleep apnea. I thought "how crazy". I do not snore, not out of breath in day or doing anything strenuous. In an overnight hospital sleep study and home finger monitor test, they found I have central apnea (never heard of it before then). I drop to about 82 sats only a few times per night but have very little rim sleep.

I am now on an O2 condenser set at 2 lpm with nasal cannula. The first week I felt so great, I thought I had finally been given back a life after 40 years of exhaustion (and with it comes depression if I got too overtired).

Well, my excitement was cut short as after that first week I have slowly been losing ground and returning to my previous daily exhaustion even
though I am using the machine every bed time 8-10 hours as prescribed. I have talked to Respiratory tech to see if increasing the O2 level would help but
another finger monitor test in which I was told it looked like the monitor fell off once (not possible with the amount of tape I had on it) and 2nd night nasal
cannula must have come out....which I believe I would have remembered replacing it.

So everything looks fine to them even though I am feeling horrible.

What to do? Has anyone else had similar?

I am to the point where I feel worse with the O2 as just want to sleep and cry through the day. Before I ever started it, I had to take a 2 hour nap everyday to get through but I didn't feel like it was the end of the world
every moment of the day and I could be somewhat productive during about a 5 hour time span with naps.

Please, if anyone has some experience or ideas of what might be happening with the O2 first working so wonderfully and now making me feel more miserable
than ever, please help. I just don’t know how I can keep going through day after day of this misery.

Comment by Donna B. on September 6, 2010 at 6:45pm

Thanks Jeffrey for replying. I am going to a new doctor that specializes in Sleep Apnea on the 24th. I am so discouraged by the attitude of the 1st doctor I saw, or should I say the 3 doctors I saw. I never saw the same one in my 3 visits to this office. I got the feeling that this was not their primary focus at this practice. I have educated myself through websites such as this one and have learned so much. I am grateful you are all here to help. Thanks.

Comment by Jeffrey Donaldson on September 6, 2010 at 5:27pm

I know the feeling of how depression and sleep apnea go hand in hand. Antideppressents will help in the short term. That is what it took to get me out of bed and back to work. However the sleep apnea needs to be adddressed. Surgery is definately a last resort option. I would seek out a doctor that specializes in sleep apnea and explore the other c-pap options. There are many other options besides just a nasil mask for it. I personally use a full face mask and am happier that I ever was with the 15 years of the nasil mask. I wish I'd known about that years ago.
Don't think that you have to meet certain criteria to have sleep apnea. There are many other causes than just being overweight.
Good luck. and keep us informed on your progress.

Comment by Donna B. on September 6, 2010 at 5:07pm

For over a year I have been suffering with exhaustion, daytime sleepiness and taking frequent daytime naps. My physician just recommended an extra cup of coffee in the afternoons at work ! I have GAD and take Paxil, I would have to check in with him every 3 months while taking the Paxil. At every appointment I would complain that it was not getting any better. I was literally sleeping my life away and I wanted to know why. Blood tests revealed nothing-all was normal. My Ob-Gyn ran my hormone levels-all normal. Finally he recommended a Pulmonary doctor, I had an overnight sleep test, 2nd overnight w/CPAP test and the CPAP was a complete failure. My RDI was 14.1 with CPAP, I woke up as many times with the machine. The doctor said it would not benefit me. He suggested the 3 most common surgeries and said to get back to him. I am not comfortable just jumping in to a surgery without a 2nd opinion. I have an appt with a new doctor on the 24th. I am 49, 5'3" & 116lbs, ( no children at home) I do not fit any of the profiles of OSA. My biggest issue right now is the depression that this OSA is causing. I hate my life, or should I say, lack of a life. All I do is sleep. Has anyone found help with anti-depressants, even just short term ?? I cannot stand to live like this much longer.

Comment by susan mccord on October 15, 2009 at 7:52pm

Hey, Steven, kudos to you for shaking the bushes about trying to stay healthy. And alive! Sometimes, actually often, MDs don't take the exhaustion issue seriously. Several of us on SG have had that experience. For me, it was process of many years of going in with c/o exhaustion and being blood-tested and anti-depressant'd ad nauseum. I had no clue and neither did the MD. My cardiologist was the one who finally got me sent for a sleep study. So if you're concerned, keep on after 'em! It's YOUR life that may be at stake!!!

Susan McCord :-)

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