Anyone have weight loss solve thier apnea?

[a_gunslinger]

Out of curiosity, has anyone lost a lot of weight and noticed their apnea improve or go away? My physician suggested a trend toward body size, neck size, etc being more common in OSA and CSA. Just not nearly as many skinny people ;^) I could stand to lose 40 pounds, and am going to try. Just wondering of improved apnea could be a pleasant side effect.

[Julie]

If you lose a lot of weight (40 lbs may not qualify) through e.g. bariatric surgery, a few people have been known to be able to get off Cpap following a new sleep study, but the majority who lose (and so often regain later on) 20, 30 lbs are not usually able to stop. Things may improve, pressures may be able to go down, but in general most need to stay on Cpap. What does need to change often is the mask, because your face changes a lot early on in weight loss.

[Violet West]

My doc says it's not even mostly a weight problem -- mostly age because our muscles get softer and lose tone as we age naturally; and for women, the lack of hormonal protection after menopause also comes into play. So for most of us I would think, losing weight would improve things, but not a "cure." I'm guessing if there are younger people out there whose OSA is due to severe obesity, that might be different for them.

[BlackSpinner]

In weight loss surgery they found it was a 50/50 chance that your OSA would be solved.

[chunkyfrog]

When I lost nearly 40 pounds, going down to "not overweight",
It did not make a damn bit of difference with my apnea/pressure.
Losing weight was otherwise WONDERFUL! More energy, better control of my diabetes, and I was sexier.
Cpap let me get the rest I needed to tackle a successful weight loss program.

[BlackSpinner]

When I lost nearly 40 pounds, going down to "not overweight",
It did not make a damn bit of difference with my apnea/pressure.
Losing weight was otherwise WONDERFUL! More energy, better control of my diabetes, and I was sexier.
Cpap let me get the rest I needed to tackle a successful weight loss program.

And I did the reverse. Due to a really rough last few years and emotional eating I put on 40 lbs and it didn't make one bit of difference to my pressure needs.

[ChicagoGranny]

My physician suggested a trend toward body size, neck size, etc being more common in OSA ....

"It's not the size of the neck on the outside. It's the size of the airway in the neck." - Dr. Mack Jones

[Janknitz]

75 lbs lost. Still have severe apnea.

[a_gunslinger]

Janknitz, soory about the continued OSA but CONGRATS on 75 lb weight loss!!!!

[chunkyfrog]

Yes, good job!

[Wulfman...]

The chances are extremely slim. A few have reported it happening, but most do not seem to report back after a year or so, and particularly whether they had follow-up sleep studies. Lots of "skinny" or "normal" sized people have OSA, too.

But, on the other side, a goodly number of people have also reported needing even higher pressures after weight loss.

Same story with "surgeries". Most are not permanently "cured". Still require needing XPAP therapy and sometimes with higher pressures or Bi-level therapy.


Den

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[Janknitz]

Thanks! I'm OK with the continued OSA. I have a very small airway, weight loss wasn't going to help in the first place. I had the apnea long before I gained the weight.

There are some people who may get off CPAP with weight loss, but often doctors suggest that we caused our OSA by gaining weight. This is nothing but fat shaming. In many cases, we had the OSA first. Apnea messes with hormones including Grehlin, Leptin, Insulin, Cortisol. Those are among the hormones that regulate our metabolism. So many of us gained weight BECAUSE of the OSA. CPAP treatment helped calm down those hormonal issues for me. I still had to make major lifestyle changes, but that would have been nearly impossible before CPAP treatment because my hormones were in such an uproar.

Because some people get off CPAP with weight loss, it's easy to wrongly assume the primary cause of OSA is excess weight. What does that say about our members here who are of normal weight or even below normal BMI?

Fat loss resulting from positive lifestyle changes, is ALWAYS a good thing. And it MAY help. But you didn't cause your OSA, and you are not a failure if your weight loss doesn't cure it.

[Quickstrike]

I've actually gained about 30 lbs. since I started CPAP around October of 2014 when I started driving truck. I'm a lot more active with plenty of manual labor at my job so I'm sure some of it is muscle.

[Goofproof]

If you lose enough weight, and think you don't need XPAP anymore, at least your pallbearers, will get a break. Jim

[tmoody]

I asked my pulmonologist this question long ago, when I was first diagnosed. His answer was the same as a number of the responses in this thread. He said weight loss might result in a need for lower CPAP pressure, but it almost certainly wouldn't lead to not needing a machine at all. He pointed out, as others have done in this thread, that plenty of apnea patients have normal body weight.

My conclusion: For those of us who are overweight or obese, such as myself, weight loss is a good thing for lots of reasons, one of which is that it might reduce the severity of apnea, but it's not realistic to hope that it will cure it.