Sleep Apnea: Weight Gain, Relationships, and Hypertension

[kifaru]

I am currently being treated for sleep apnea a condition where the sufferer has frequent sleep disturbances and stops breathing during sleep. On the outside people may just write it off as loud snoring however it can lead to serious health consequences. Sleep apnea is possibly one of the worst silent epidemics in America affecting millions of people. Many doctors do not recognize the signs of the condition and therefore fail to treat it. What I can tell you is that it can affect all aspects of a persons life. Let me tell you how it has affected me.

Snoring is common but severe snoring can be a sign of an even worse problem: Apnea. I did not know I snored loudly for years but after finding out I mostly blew it off. As my snoring became more severe I started gaining weight. I assumed it was because I was lifting weights and that was what was causing my appetite increases. I also started having night sweats. What sent me over the edge and made me go to a doctor was my frequent chest pain and the fact that my partner at the time was becoming irritable. My doctor assumed it from lifting the weight and prescribed motrin. Still no relief.

Later during my ordeal I started having frequent urges to urinate at night. Upon reporting this to my doctor I was checked for prostate problems, venereal diseases, narrowing of the urethra and all tests came back negative. My health was deteriorating and my blood pressure was becoming worse but all my doctor did was prescribe more medicine. I was irritiable and tired all the time. I never slept in a bed because the only position I felt comfortable in was lying on my side so I always slept on a sofa. Eventually the irritability caused me to be unable to cope with problems that occur in all relationships. Lack of sleep magnified even the smallest problems. It led to me leave the woman I was in a relationship with.

I would sometimes spend days in bed, which had the unwanted consequence of social isolation. Embarrassment from the snoring led me to have very limited intimacy with people physical or otherwise. Mentally I was a wreck. My short term memory was going and I had trouble making good decisions. Now you have to understand it doesn't happen all at once it is a gradual deterioration so it is not as if you notice these things until later. The mental stress and physical stress was terrible. I had anxiety and depression and I tried to self medicate by overeating and having sex because these things seemed to make me sleep better yet they both caused me shame and more anxiety which led to more depression. My doctor medicated me with more blood pressure medicine and sleeping pills. Still no relief.

At some point I put it all together and after scouring the internet realized that I had sleep apnea. I cannot tell you why my doctor was unable to put the symptoms together and figure it out but that's just the way it is. I decided to go try to get help for the condition. The first thing to do was get a sleep study. My first study showed that I did not have apnea because I was unable to go to sleep in the sleep center. After suffering for more than a year more I had went to another doctor and had another study done and it was determined that I did have apnea. He suggested surgery. It was terrible and though it did help with some problems I had with breathing through my nose my apnea did not go away. Two years later I went back to another doctor who also recommended surgery. This was also terrible and still did not cure my apnea.

I finally got my primary care doctor to get me another study and was finally prescribed a cpap machine. A cpap (continuous positive airway pressure) machine basically works by blowing air into your airway preventing your palate from collapsing thereby allowing a person the continue breathing during sleep. This prevents snoring and of course apnea.

So why did it take nearly 15 years of suffering for me to get what I needed. Doctors are not always able to put things together and they can be sent on wild goose chases by chasing a symptom instead of looking at the overall symptoms. Being tired all the time, I was probably not as aggressive as I should have been because the doctor never was not able to determine there was anything wrong with me. The other key thing is my sleep studies. The doctors who ordered them only ordered studies to determine whether or not I had apnea not studies where I would be treated with cpap therapy at night to see if that would alleviate my symptoms. Basically they wanted justification to do my surgeries not so much to treat my problem.

So now after 6 months of cpap therapy I have gotten control of my appetite, and I have lost 20 lbs and my blood pressure is slowly coming back in line

Cpap is the standard therapy for apnea. If you are obese you also need to lose weight as this is the best help after cpap for apnea.



1 If you snore at night understand this: snoring is common it is not necessarily normal.

2 You must be agressive in your health care issues because doctors do make mistakes.

3 If you do go in for a sleep study you must make sure that you have a therapeutic study and not just a diagnostic study.

4 If one of your loved ones snores loudly take them into get checked

Be watchful for these symptoms:

Excessive daytime sleepiness, which is falling asleep when you normally should not, such as while you are eating, talking, or driving.

Waking with an unrefreshed feeling after sleep, having problems with memory and concentration, feeling tired, and experiencing personality changes.

Morning or night headaches. About half of all people with sleep apnea report headaches.2

Heartburn or a sour taste in the mouth at night.

Swelling of the legs if you are obese.

Getting up during the night to urinate (nocturia).

Sweating and chest pain while you are sleeping

Obesity

Copyright K.L. Jones

[Rene]

I believe I may have sleep apnea but have not had a sleep study done yet. I haven't woke up gasping for air in months, since I stopped taking one of my pysch meds which wasn't helping me anyway.

Sleep apnea is some scary-ass shit. I used to sleep with cellphone in hand up until recently, just in case I had to dial 911 because I had stopped breathing. This was before I learned that sleep apnea isn't fatal.

[kifaru]

Well I sguggest you don't get yourself worked up about it. Just make an appointment with your doctor if you have the insurance and be adamant that you want a sleep study and don't take no for an answer. Then make sure you are sleepy befor you get the sleep study. If that means satying up extra hours before you go in do that because you want to be in your sleepiest state before you go.

[StratAtak]

Just a note , if you have sleep apnea , stay away from sedative meds , like a class named benzodiazapines ( ambien/ xanax ativan to name a few)
It just exponentially decrease respiratory drive while sleeping . SOme people actually die from the combo ..

[CurvyDivaJC]

I have many of those symptoms. I can fall asleep at my desk after 8 hrs of broken sleep. I just chalked it up to being chunky. My boyfriend says I snore loudly, gruggle, and hard to breathe. I also have asthma. So that has been blamed. I had my toncils and adenoids taken out thinking that would help. I will definately ask my doctor.

[CurvyDivaJC]

So in previous post I was certain I had sleep apnea. Recently I have been diagnosed and given a CPAP. I will have to say I only used it one. It makes me break out into a panic attack. I am claustrophobic to the 10th power! Anybody have any suggestions so that I can use it? I have had it for almost 2 weeks.