Sleep apnea questions - Sleep Disorders Message Board

siren1024 · 12-18-2004, 01:59 PM

I think I'm getting it from pregnancy. I'm sure it's just the baby weight, cause I remember this happening with my first after I started getting big. It went away after my son was born. But I quite frequently find myself startling and gasping in air, feeling like I have stopped breathing, especially right when I'm falling asleep. It's worst if I end up rolling on to my back at night. I have a friend with sleep apnea, and it sounds just like his symptoms. Plus I know his got worse when he gained alot of weight. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

I did have very similar experiences while taking narcotic painkillers for my back. I discontinued them because I'm obviously quite suceptible to the depressed breathing side effects. Other than that, I've never had symptoms of sleep apnea. Do you think the extra weight of the baby is causing it?

I forgot to mention... My nasal passages feel "swollen" and the back of my throat kind of feels like it collapses or something at these times, but oddly enough, I don't snore.

DoodleBug011592 · 12-18-2004, 02:47 PM

It sounds exactly what I am experiencing. Mine started happening right after my second daughter was born three years ago. I described what is happening to my doctor and he said they sound like panic attacks - which I am doubting, I thought with panic attacks you get out of bed and pace around for awhile, I just fall back asleep. He put me on Lexapro, which makes me drowsy, but they still happen. The episodes seem to happen just as I am falling asleep - I have counted about 15 to 20 episodes per night that I am aware of. I have a sleep study scheduled for January 9. Good Luck.

Smoothie_Guy · 12-18-2004, 04:27 PM

It sounds like exactly like sleep apnea! I've had the problem for years, in fact, I get to take it a little further with Narcolepsy and cataplexy thrown into the arena too! Don't mess with it. If the symptoms worsen and you feel continually fatigued in the day, you wake up and aren't refreshed...get your doctor to refer you to a sleep clinic for a study. When I was diagnosed, I would stop breathing an average of 40 times an hour! They say that is severe disruptive sleep apnea.

analog2000 · 12-19-2004, 09:36 PM

Weight gain and muscle relaxants can obviously cause/worsen sleep apnea by causing your airway to be completely or partially obstructed. You don't have to snore to have apnea.

Talk to your doc about this right away! This isn't something to mess around with. Remeber, when you have sleep apnea, you actually stop breathing during sleep. You don't start breathing again until the oxygen level in your blood gets so low that your body goes into a panic mode, wakes you up, and forces you to breathe.

Many people think of apnea as an annoyance that interferes with a good night's sleep, but it is a serious medical problem! You are being deprived of oxygen - you are suffocating! And that can have significant effects, such as high blood pressure, heart problems, lung problems, even (rarely) death.

I am not trying to scare you, just to convey how serious this really is. And, obviously, this could be having an effect on your baby.

So get treatment right away, and good luck.

shana162 · 12-28-2004, 06:27 AM

I have mild to moderate sleep apnea and I'm 34. I've snored for quite a while but I never considered I had a problem until............. I dreamed I broke some batteries in half and poured the liquid into a cup. Then for some reason I drank this liquid. I woke up convinced I drank battery acid and that I was dying. My arms and legs were tingly and I was hyperventalating. Logically, I thought I was having a system shut down from the battery acid. I happened to be downstairs and knew I didn't have time to get upstairs to my husband, so I did the next best thing......... I called 911. So, I'm on the phone with 911 and the ambulance was dispatched, then it slowly started occuring to me, "I drank battery acid? Do AA batteries even have liquid inside?" I went around the corner to where the acid drinking incident supposedly occured and there was no proof of any broken batteries or the cup I drank out of. About this time it was really getting clear that no, I didn't do this crazy thing but I am on the phone with 911 and there is an ambulance getting closer. By some miracle I was able to convince the operator that I wasn't insane and even though she begged me to let the ambulance come, just to check on me, I somehow talked my way out of that. Other much less tramatic incidents had happened in the past so I mentioned this to my doctor and she sent me for a sleep study. Sure enough, Sleep Apnea. I never would have considered that I had a problem since I'm 34 and not really over weight.