Obstructive Sleep Apnoea....do you have symptons ?
Discussion
Hello all.
In June this year, without warning, I crashed my large estate car, destroying someones parked car, a couple of brick walls, and a hedgerow.
I am very lucky, the only person injured was myself, and that was minor (largely thanks to how cars are built these days).
I presented myself to my GP and told him the above, I have been diagnosed as having, and very succesfully treated for, obstructive sleep apnoea.
This is a condition that creeps up on you, and has led to some high profile road accidents, unfortunately resulting in fatalities, I'm just so very very lucky that nobody got in the way.
Very briefly it appears to be a condition that causes you to not sleep properly, sometimes for years and years, although you don't actually know this yourself, you just get more and more fatigued, but don't personally have a measuring stick to know how you should feel.
In my own case they say I was "moderate", tests revealed that I was waking from deep to light sleep 15 times an hour, every hour !
The test is very simple, a small gadget is attached to your finger, and you sleep.
Treatment is almost as simple, you get issued with a CPAP machine, which enables you to sleep properly.
No drugs, no surgery.
The result is absolutely fantastic, I haven't felt as well as I do now for at least 20 years.
Do you snore badly ?, do you feel very fatigued ?, can you fall asleep easily at any time of the day, almost regardless of circumstances ?
If so, think about asking your GP
In June this year, without warning, I crashed my large estate car, destroying someones parked car, a couple of brick walls, and a hedgerow.
I am very lucky, the only person injured was myself, and that was minor (largely thanks to how cars are built these days).
I presented myself to my GP and told him the above, I have been diagnosed as having, and very succesfully treated for, obstructive sleep apnoea.
This is a condition that creeps up on you, and has led to some high profile road accidents, unfortunately resulting in fatalities, I'm just so very very lucky that nobody got in the way.
Very briefly it appears to be a condition that causes you to not sleep properly, sometimes for years and years, although you don't actually know this yourself, you just get more and more fatigued, but don't personally have a measuring stick to know how you should feel.
In my own case they say I was "moderate", tests revealed that I was waking from deep to light sleep 15 times an hour, every hour !
The test is very simple, a small gadget is attached to your finger, and you sleep.
Treatment is almost as simple, you get issued with a CPAP machine, which enables you to sleep properly.
No drugs, no surgery.
The result is absolutely fantastic, I haven't felt as well as I do now for at least 20 years.
Do you snore badly ?, do you feel very fatigued ?, can you fall asleep easily at any time of the day, almost regardless of circumstances ?
If so, think about asking your GP
Im sure that my dad has this and we have tried to get him to go to the doctor but he still hasnt done anything about it.
He definately snores alot.
He sleeps all the time
And he is often tired.
He was working shifts until recently and stopping the shift work has made things better, but he is still more tired than he should be.
I will show him this topic.
He definately snores alot.
He sleeps all the time
And he is often tired.
He was working shifts until recently and stopping the shift work has made things better, but he is still more tired than he should be.
I will show him this topic.
Please do, if he wants someone to talk to before he goes to the doctor I'll pm you my number.
The worst that can happen is they say he's ok !
I never ever expected to be posting that I'd actually crashed due to a microsleep ( basically I just nodded off).
There is some more here : http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a... with comments from another who was diagnosed, and a chap who's father , and someones mother, who were also diagnosed.
If he does have it, tell him he'll feel just fantastic once its treated.
The worst that can happen is they say he's ok !
I never ever expected to be posting that I'd actually crashed due to a microsleep ( basically I just nodded off).
There is some more here : http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a... with comments from another who was diagnosed, and a chap who's father , and someones mother, who were also diagnosed.
If he does have it, tell him he'll feel just fantastic once its treated.
Edited by Nigel Worc's on Monday 13th October 20:16
I used to suffer from sleep apnoea but it got noticeably better when I stopped smoking illegal substances in the evening. I still suffer from it occasionally, waking up in the night when my wife hits me and shouts "BREATHE" and then I feel tired in the morning.
Can be worse for me after a night on the sauce, but I now always use one of those nasal strips at night and leave a window open in the bedroom, seems to more or less sort the problem out.
Can be worse for me after a night on the sauce, but I now always use one of those nasal strips at night and leave a window open in the bedroom, seems to more or less sort the problem out.
I've been feeling more and more exhausted lately and was putting it down to where I live, noisy neighbours etc.
I do snore and if I do get a lot of sleep I still feel pretty exhausted but then my OH has been feeling the same. I also can't get to sleep at any point during the day and often not at night even when exhausted either so I'm guessing I don't have this and just need to sleep more.
I do snore and if I do get a lot of sleep I still feel pretty exhausted but then my OH has been feeling the same. I also can't get to sleep at any point during the day and often not at night even when exhausted either so I'm guessing I don't have this and just need to sleep more.
madrob6 said:
I've been feeling more and more exhausted lately and was putting it down to where I live, noisy neighbours etc.
I do snore and if I do get a lot of sleep I still feel pretty exhausted but then my OH has been feeling the same. I also can't get to sleep at any point during the day and often not at night even when exhausted either so I'm guessing I don't have this and just need to sleep more.
The test is ever so simple, please consider asking your gp, had anyone gotten in my way, I'd have killed them.I do snore and if I do get a lot of sleep I still feel pretty exhausted but then my OH has been feeling the same. I also can't get to sleep at any point during the day and often not at night even when exhausted either so I'm guessing I don't have this and just need to sleep more.
The one thing you descibe "if I get a lot of sleep I still feel exhasted", was exactly what I experienced.
You may be completely clear, but the only reason I've posted this stuff is I'm a so called professional driver, covering 40 - 50,000 miles a year, I'm a driving anorack, a senior observer with the IAM,...........despite all this I've seen the trail of destruction I left.
I'd never heard of this condition, let alone thinking I was suffering from anything.
Nigel,
I printed your post for my wife...years of 'hearing' her stop breathing in the night...followed by the bed shaking as the breathing re started.
Separate bedrooms now...always twin beds on holiday...Boots wax earplugs in travel kit...she can sometimes drop off at lunchtime for a snooze (so can I)...
What puzzles me is that she swims and does Arabic dancing every week, digs a full allotment, runs the Village Market, and generally walks the bloody legs off me.
I will keep trying to get her to have it checked out...if I can catch her...
BOF
I printed your post for my wife...years of 'hearing' her stop breathing in the night...followed by the bed shaking as the breathing re started.
Separate bedrooms now...always twin beds on holiday...Boots wax earplugs in travel kit...she can sometimes drop off at lunchtime for a snooze (so can I)...
What puzzles me is that she swims and does Arabic dancing every week, digs a full allotment, runs the Village Market, and generally walks the bloody legs off me.
I will keep trying to get her to have it checked out...if I can catch her...
BOF
I was the same.
On two occasions that I can remember I have woken, having fallen out of bed onto the floor, choking, as if someone is strangling me, my wife says it has happened more than that, but these incidents were very spaced apart.
She asked me several times to see the doctor, each time she asked I said I'd mention it, I did, but without mentioning those incidents, just saying about the tiredness etc.
I'm so sorry now, all the grief I'm suffering needn't be happening.
I could have killed someone, oh so very easily.
The test is so simple, it'd just rule it out in her case.
On two occasions that I can remember I have woken, having fallen out of bed onto the floor, choking, as if someone is strangling me, my wife says it has happened more than that, but these incidents were very spaced apart.
She asked me several times to see the doctor, each time she asked I said I'd mention it, I did, but without mentioning those incidents, just saying about the tiredness etc.
I'm so sorry now, all the grief I'm suffering needn't be happening.
I could have killed someone, oh so very easily.
The test is so simple, it'd just rule it out in her case.
Nigel Worc's said:
I was the same.
On two occasions that I can remember I have woken, having fallen out of bed onto the floor, choking, as if someone is strangling me, my wife says it has happened more than that, but these incidents were very spaced apart.
She asked me several times to see the doctor, each time she asked I said I'd mention it, I did, but without mentioning those incidents, just saying about the tiredness etc.
I'm so sorry now, all the grief I'm suffering needn't be happening.
I could have killed someone, oh so very easily.
The test is so simple, it'd just rule it out in her case.
Nigel, I am interested by the first paragraph in the quote - waking up choking. Now I note that you have been diagnosed ?after a sleep test as having sleep apnoea - a common condition and, as you say, readily treatable. My understanding was that the sufferer is unaware of the problem whilst it is happening - though their partner is acutely aware of noisy snoring with sudden and prolonged cessation of breathing followed by resumption, often without the sufferer awakening. As you describe being woken by choking I wonder if you have also got a separate condition - nocturnal laryngospasm. My wife and I realised that I had this a few years ago. In my case the problem occurs infrequently - from about once every two to three years up to two to three times a year. Usually it happens at the end of a "cold" when the cold is getting better, and has moved from the nasopharynx further down and the secretions are becoming thicker, and often when I have had some wine with supper, so am sleeping heavily. I wake abruptly in the early hours, feeling completely unable to breathe - terrified, the sensation being exactly as if one has breathed in water whilst swimming. Often the sufferer sits up or leaps out of bed - in my case I used to indicate to my slowly wakening wife that I was desparate for a bang on the back, as one would if choking on water. A feeble croaking noise comes from the mouth (so a tiny amount of air must be passing though the larynx) and after what seems an age, (but is probably between 15 seconds and a minute), you can breathe again. Whilst it is happening you genuinely feel as if you are about to die. I mentioned it to a consultant ENT surgeon colleague, who said that he saw a case or two a year and recalled that one of his patients had been so scared that he crapped himself in bed. Of course you don't die, because if you were starved of air for long enough you would become unconscious and the vocal cords (the problem is that they are in spasm, blocking off nearly all the airway) would relax, and the larynx would re-open. Looking at the journals on the web, it appears that a few people get daytime attacks but that is rare. There is no specific treatment, though speech therapy is sometimes suggested. However, for others who may be reading this, knowledge of the condition and that it won't kill you* is useful, though while it is happening you still feel that you are dying. True nocturnal laryngospasm is of course not a psychological or panic reaction as it only occurs when one is deep asleep.On two occasions that I can remember I have woken, having fallen out of bed onto the floor, choking, as if someone is strangling me, my wife says it has happened more than that, but these incidents were very spaced apart.
She asked me several times to see the doctor, each time she asked I said I'd mention it, I did, but without mentioning those incidents, just saying about the tiredness etc.
I'm so sorry now, all the grief I'm suffering needn't be happening.
I could have killed someone, oh so very easily.
The test is so simple, it'd just rule it out in her case.
- This might not be absolutely true, as if one had ischaemic heart disease then the hypoxia and the surge of adrenaline that accompanies terror might trigger an arrythmia!
Sweet dreams, Nomis.
Gassing Station | Advanced Driving | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff