What caused you to seek medical help,....

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
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Mark55
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What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by Mark55 » Sat Nov 04, 2017 4:22 pm

In terms of what caused you to seek out the original medical intervention that resulted in your diagnosis with sleep apnea of whatever variety.

For me I never would have guessed I would not have passed the sleep study. As I have mentioned before I am in good shape in terms of BMI, and I do not snore to speak of. Years ago I was always a fragmented sleeper, as I have been a type A most of my life. Having my own business didn't help with my sleep habits either, but I always got through the day without too much trouble.

About a year and a half ago I started feeling very real fatigue even though I was sleeping more easily than ever before in terms of hours. I used to take an hour or more to drop off, now I can do it in minutes most nights.
My fatigue got so bad that by afternoon I was having to force myself to keep going, and by the time I got home and plopped in front of the computer to do my 'tasks', I was literally dropping off in the chair,...something I had never done before. I knew something wasn't right when I almost went to sleep at traffic lights on the way home a couple of times.

My GP did some extensive blood work, and my Cardiologist did some testing on me and couldn't find anything glaringly wrong with me. A week later after getting my echo results back, the Cardiologist noticed a tiny change from my previous one that led him to the sleep apnea hypothesis, and resulted in sending me for a sleep study.

I was only able to sleep for a couple of hours with all that garbage hooked up to me, but the Doc said it was enough, and that the study showed an AHI of 16, (just inside moderate), and a couple of brief desat events going into the mid to upper eighties.

I would imagine that my symptoms and diagnosis is not that out of the ordinary, but I was just curious how some of you folks came to know you had this 'wonderful' condition?

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TASmart
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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by TASmart » Sat Nov 04, 2017 4:29 pm

I have been tired for some 40 years. Not sleepy but deeply fatigued. For years the Drs either just sluffed off my complaints or wrote it off to depression disrupting my sleep. Finally, a few years ago one Dr actually listened and suggested a sleep study. Having no insurance at the time, I had to pass on that. Last year I became insured and got the ball rolling. Took from a referral to a sleep clinic in June until late in the following March to get an APAP. I started feeling better after the first night. And I still every so often notice that I feel even better.
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Mark55
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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by Mark55 » Sat Nov 04, 2017 4:36 pm

TASmart wrote:I have been tired for some 40 years. Not sleepy but deeply fatigued. For years the Drs either just sluffed off my complaints or wrote it off to depression disrupting my sleep. Finally, a few years ago one Dr actually listened and suggested a sleep study. Having no insurance at the time, I had to pass on that. Last year I became insured and got the ball rolling. Took from a referral to a sleep clinic in June until late in the following March to get an APAP. I started feeling better after the first night. And I still every so often notice that I feel even better.
Yes, when I first started complaining I got the "Could it be depression?" routine as well. They even checked my testosterone levels, and three pages of other blood tests.

My GP never mentioned a sleep study or apnea,....only my Cardiologist. Even though I am not compliant, or really feeling much different, I have had a couple of nights of therapy where all went well for roughly 6 hours or more. I definitely felt better by late afternoon on those couple of days.

That is what keeps me determined to succeed at overcoming this machine!

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Julie
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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by Julie » Sat Nov 04, 2017 4:41 pm

Never sleepy for a minute, but my now ex told me I stopped breathing, only eventually giving a big gasp, plus had little a.m. headaches, and wild dreams just in the last couple of mos. before dx'g. Also had little night sweats though I was recently over otherwise uneventful menopause.

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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by Dgriffin333 » Sat Nov 04, 2017 4:42 pm

Sounds exactly like me skinny kid underweight no one thought sleep apnea did every other test imaginable last resort was sleep study but turned out it the only thing not normal was my sleep

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MaxINTJ
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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by MaxINTJ » Sat Nov 04, 2017 4:50 pm

Mark55 wrote:Yes, when I first started complaining I got the "Could it be depression?" routine as well. They even checked my testosterone levels, and three pages of other blood tests.
And for me, over a month of CBT-I before getting sent for a sleep study.
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RicaLynn
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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by RicaLynn » Sat Nov 04, 2017 5:03 pm

I've know since childhood I was a snorer, and my parents both had apnea -- my father's was severe, and he started CPAP in his early 50's; my mother's was never diagnosed but we both knew it was there, likely mild to moderate. I was diagnosed with depression in my mid-20's, then ADHD in my early 30's (though I've had it all my life).

Honestly, what caused me to seek treatment was the fact that I am a single parent to a school-aged child and have a significant family history of both heart disease and cancer. I need to head off as many risk factors as I can, and I hoped that treating my apnea would also improve my depression and ADHD symptoms. If it hasn't been for the ACA I never would have had insurance coverage for an in-lab sleep study, but now that I have the diagnosis and a sympathetic PCP, I am set for PAP therapy long into the future.

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Mark55
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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by Mark55 » Sat Nov 04, 2017 5:11 pm

Julie wrote:Never sleepy for a minute, but my now ex told me I stopped breathing, only eventually giving a big gasp, plus had little a.m. headaches, and wild dreams just in the last couple of mos. before dx'g. Also had little night sweats though I was recently over otherwise uneventful menopause.
My ex never noticed that, but she used to say I breathed so shallow at times she wondered if I was dead.
I always seemed to be having vivid dreams as well,.....dreams that totally made no sense.

Now I seem to no longer dream, but Pugsy said I'm just not remembering them anymore due to not awakening nearly as much. I'm trying to discover a pattern between the nights I use the machine and when I don't, but so far nothing. That's not really a concern so,...whatever!

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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by DreamStalker » Sat Nov 04, 2017 5:11 pm

For me it was an important meeting with a group of science and engineering consultants all sitting around a conference table ... and then my boss elbowed me in the ribs because I had interrupted the discussion with my snoring.

I was lucky I didn't get fired but that embarrassment was what it took for me to ask my primary care doc to investigate why I was falling asleep in the middle of a meeting. He measured my neck with a tape measure and said I need to get checked for sleep apnea which I had never heard of. Off to the sleep lab I went one Friday night and a week later I was told I had one of the worse cases of OSA they had ever diagnosed with AHI of 102 and desaturating O2 levels down to 60%.
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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by Okie bipap » Sat Nov 04, 2017 5:17 pm

I was first diagnosed in 1996 or 1997. I told my doctor I was snoring loudly, and could not drive for very long without stopping to take a nap. My job required me to travel often. I would leave home at six in the morning, drive about an hour, and would have to stop and take a nap. She scheduled me for a sleep study. I had a badly deviated septum that needed to be corrected, so I opted for surgery in an attempt to keep from using a CPAP machine. I had UPPP surgery which helped with the symptoms for several years.

When I had knee replacement surgery three years ago, the nurses noted my blood oxygen was dropping while I slept. The doctor that did the morning rounds (a pulmonologist) scheduled me for a sleep study, then a titration study. Since he did not document a face to face meeting where we discussed sleep apnea, Medicare refused to pay for the machine. The doctor and his staff refused to return my phone calls, so I found a different sleep specialist and went through a new round of testing (sleep study, titration study, bi-level titration study) before I finally got a machine and started my treatment.

After I started my treatment, I tried to talk my wife into being tested. She said she would never be able to sleep with all of that "crap" on her face. At our next doctor appointment, I mentioned that she was snoring and would stop breathing while she slept. Our family physician scheduled her for a sleep study. She is now using a bi-level machine. She normally sleeps longer than I do every night with all of that "crap" on her face.

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Mark55
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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by Mark55 » Sat Nov 04, 2017 5:21 pm

DreamStalker wrote:For me it was an important meeting with a group of science and engineering consultants all sitting around a conference table ... and then my boss elbowed me in the ribs because I had interrupted the discussion with my snoring.

I was lucky I didn't get fired but that embarrassment was what it took for me to ask my primary care doc to investigate why I was falling asleep in the middle of a meeting. He measured my neck with a tape measure and said I need to get checked for sleep apnea which I had never heard of. Off to the sleep lab I went one Friday night and a week later I was told I had one of the worse cases of OSA they had ever diagnosed with AHI of 102 and desaturating O2 levels down to 60%.


Wow!!!!
That would get my attention.

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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by kteague » Sat Nov 04, 2017 5:24 pm

The initial complaint that drove me to the doctor was episodes of waking abruptly with heart pounding and shortness of breath. This led to a battery of cardiac tests and eventually a sleep study. Unfortunately all that showed up in the sleep study was limb movements. Didn't know at that time that when sleep apnea and limb movements co-exist they can mask each other. It was nearly 7 years of deteriorating sleep and health, struggling to get my jumpy legs under control, and a couple more sleep studies later to track how my legs were doing that the OSA was revealed and treatment began. My doctors and myself were convinced it had been there all along but they just couldn't prove it. It was in the 1980's that after a surgery I had an extended stay in recovery because they couldn't keep my oxygen up, but no mention was made of sleep apnea and so that went uninvestigated for many more years.

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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by Arlene1963 » Sat Nov 04, 2017 5:26 pm

Never felt fatigued. Always had lots of energy. No weight issues, BMI around 24.9 when diagnosed. Now it's lower, about 22. I know BMI is not a good measure, but anyway ...

Landed up in ER with atrial tachycardia about 2 years ago. No-one could figure out why, and and someone in ER (one of the doctors) suggested I might have OSA. I had never heard of this and thought it was a daft idea.

Sleep study indicated an AHI of 16.

I'd been having night sweats but never would have figured it was OSA, I thought it was menopause since I'd just turned 51. I also had rapid heart beat when waking up at night. And high blood pressure since I was in my early 30s. Also, a scalloped tongue since I can remember, so chances are I've had SDB for a long time ...

I think that SDB is very prevalent. Recent research seems to bear this out. Menopause seems to be the tipping point for a lot of women moving the range from mild to moderate OSA.

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Julie
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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by Julie » Sat Nov 04, 2017 5:46 pm

No it is not! Look things up before you post!

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Mark55
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Re: What caused you to seek medical help,....

Post by Mark55 » Sat Nov 04, 2017 5:49 pm

Julie wrote:No it is not! Look things up before you post!
Yea,...I thought a hypopnea was overly shallow breathing, or a very low respiration rate?

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