Mild Sleep Apnea- Fatigue alternate day

Hi, I am glad to find this website. I was just being diagnosed to have mild sleep apnea through sleep test. I have been having a fatigue condition on alternate day or every other day. I am not too sure why alternate day? Would appreciate anyone has similar experience share with me. I am kind of concern of other medical complication beside sleep apnea. This afternoon, I will see my cardiologist for further consultation on the results from sleep test. I am wondering is there any difference in terms of symptoms between mild, moderate and severe sleep apnea. What are the option for mild sleep apnea treatment? Should I start with CPAP, will it help?

Thank you for your kind assistance in advance.

Warmest regards,
Phaik Eem

newbielpe wrote:Hi, I am glad to find this website. I was just being diagnosed to have mild sleep apnea through sleep test. I have been having a fatigue condition on alternate day or every other day. I am not too sure why alternate day? Would appreciate anyone has similar experience share with me. I am kind of concern of other medical complication beside sleep apnea. This afternoon, I will see my cardiologist for further consultation on the results from sleep test. I am wondering is there any difference in terms of symptoms between mild, moderate and severe sleep apnea. What are the option for mild sleep apnea treatment? Should I start with CPAP, will it help?

Thank you for your kind assistance in advance.

Warmest regards,
Phaik Eem

Sure it will. I can't explain why the alternate day scenario, but it could be any number of things. We don't sleep the same night after night and there may be some things regarding your Adrenalin and how it may affect you. I would suggest asking a doctor if it's that big of a question to you.

But, yeah, get started with a CPAP. They may have caught yours before it got to the Moderate or Severe stages. This stuff doesn't go from nothing to severe overnight. It can take years.


Den

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Bad sleep can act like a roller coaster ride, you have a bad night then since it was so bad you may do better the next out of shear exhaustion.

If I were you I'd plan on making cpap treatment work, thinking about it won't help, using cpap treatment will, if done correctly. Jim

Hello and welcome. I'm not sure how medical records are handled at your location, but if possible get copies of your test results. Sometimes there are helpful details in there. For instance, to get a reasonably complete picture of the severity of your sleep apnea, you would need to have gotten a significant amount of the different sleep stages, especially REM sleep in the supine position. If that did happen, your diagnosis of mild is more likely to be on point. If not, your severity in real life could be more. Also, you could look to see if there is a positional component to your events. I am admittedly biased to CPAP treatment. My first response is to just go ahead and get on CPAP, as that's probably where you'll end up anyway. But in an attempt to be fair, depending on the particulars of your study there may be other options for you. Going straight to CPAP can bring you results without a lot of time invested in trial and error seeing if those other options might work for you.

I think that your symptoms, however bad they may seem, are not as important as what your test shows. All of us have similar symptoms, and some of us have different ones, and some are worse and some are easier... but that's not how we decide on how to treat apnea... results from testing do that, and it can be surprising how quickly symptoms may go away even if they felt terrible, and other people who had very mild symptoms can take a longer time to recover. Just depends on the individual.

Hello Phaik Eem,
I have the exact same problem and very similar results from my sleep study(mild/borderline sleep apnea).I too have fatigue every other day. Did you get on CPAP and if so did it help?

Thank you for your help
Jimmy

You're likely sleeping better with less interrupted sleep/less hypoxemia on the better days.

Both of you are talking to a poster who left a year ago...

I have exactly the same problem I feel tired every other day for two years now and I haven't been able to figure it out. I am 44 years of age I am otherwise healthy and fit my diet is clean I am on low carbs good fats moderate protein low sugar eating plan I drink plenty of water but I feel bad and tired with a headache and tingling in the body every other day. What's also interesting is that on my bad days I feel very hungry and I can't stop eating.
All the blood work I've done is fine including some of the less Orthodox items and nobody has been able to find anything I've seen multiple Doctors Two natropaths I've taken all sorts of different supplements nothing changed anything in my condition even a little bit so every second day I feel tired with no explination

FIRE THE NATUROPATHS.
Just go to the real doctors.

xxyzx wrote:

xxyzx wrote: bad sleep
tired next day

tired
better sleep

repeat

go see a REAL doctor
get a full physical with full lab results
then see specialists as needed
heart lung allergy shrink yada yada

do an IHT for apnea
cheaper faster easier better to rent on on the net at less than my copay for a lab was
dont overpay some sleep lab and wait months to do it

I agree with repeat bit as every other day I pass out so it's a good night sleep.

Other points: yes, seen many 'real doctors' - no avail, they are at a loss to explain it given the normal readings of tests.
Then saw 2 different naturopaths who checked the usual lifestyle factors and that checked out.
physical and lab done including some of the unorthodox ones like copper, zinc, vitamin D, DHEA, thyroid and the usual cholesterol, liver, kidney etc. One thing that was high was homocysteine which I had since reduced back to normal with vitamin B supplementation.
Cortisol saliva test came up with high cortisol on a 'bad night' so that could be it? But again, why every other day symptoms!?
Apnea test: done, cleared.
Blood pressure 24 ambulatory monitor: done, clear

I will be attempting a 7 day water fast hoping to clear out any pathogens/bugs/parasites/viruses from the gut as this strange 'every other day' cycle could be due to some crazy bug/virus AND I don't know what else to try at this stage. Wish me luck, starting on 8/15.

]

xxyzx wrote:

Dirk1973 wrote:
I will be attempting a 7 day water fast hoping to clear out any pathogens/bugs/parasites/viruses from the gut as this strange 'every other day' cycle could be due to some crazy bug/virus AND I don't know what else to try at this stage. Wish me luck, starting on 8/15.

===

i would question a water fast at all even if it could do anything like kill a parasite which is unlikely

you need water for your kidneys to be healthy

if you are doing wacko things like that then maybe they are what is the problem

A water fast is when you drink ONLY water and don't eat; it's not when you don't drink any water at all. It sounds like from the kidney sentence above you were thinking he was planning to not drink water for seven days.

Yes, listen to that cat - a water fast (not drinking) is very bad at any time. I wonder about the alternative night thing... it's possible you're getting just enough treatment to feel good for a day, but the next night, even if well treated technically, you may be playing catch up physically from 36 hrs earlier or so and just not recouping enough in time... hopefully it will sort itself out in time.

I really just want to say that even if you don't do a water fast, your reasoning for doing one - getting rid of bugs, etc. - is just not medically sound. There are so many alternative med. tracks now and so many sound so 'smart', but in fact you should talk to a nutritionist, a renal specialist, other establishment medical people - not because they're establishment but because they have decades of serious science behind them and a world full of colleagues who collaborate to find provable answers - and see what they think of the idea... they can't all be wrong, and I doubt if the rationale to wash things out is much good.

xxyzx wrote:

WearyOne wrote:

xxyzx wrote:

Dirk1973 wrote:
I will be attempting a 7 day water fast hoping to clear out any pathogens/bugs/parasites/viruses from the gut as this strange 'every other day' cycle could be due to some crazy bug/virus AND I don't know what else to try at this stage. Wish me luck, starting on 8/15.

===

i would question a water fast at all even if it could do anything like kill a parasite which is unlikely

you need water for your kidneys to be healthy

if you are doing wacko things like that then maybe they are what is the problem

A water fast is when you drink ONLY water and don't eat; it's not when you don't drink any water at all. It sounds like from the kidney sentence above you were thinking he was planning to not drink water for seven days.

======

silly me

i thought fast meant you did without it

like with food
when you fast you dont eat

Yeah, "water fast" is an odd way of putting it, IMO. But I knew he couldn't be going 7 days without water (or some type of liquid), so I looked it up.

WearyOne is correct "A water fast is when you drink ONLY water and don't eat"

Also to Julie's input. In addition to all the tests (mentioned above) that came out good, I have tried many little adjustments to no avail such as:

- gym
- no gym for a month
- dairy
- no dairy for 3 weeks
- very moderate alcohol intake and then
- no alcohol for a month
- regular low intensity exercise, 10,000 steps daily
- eat nuts normally
- don't eat nuts for 3 weeks
- low salt intake for years
- tried higher himalayan salt intake
- all sorts of diff good quality supplements that are supposed to help with 'fatigue like' symptoms that I have
- very healthy diet for years: whole foods, low sugar, low refined carb, low/no grain - close to keto/paleo
- I even increased 'junk food' for few weeks - no change to better or worse!
- took up hiking, weekend escapes to national forest, camping
- drinking 2l bottled water for years
- tried drinking less water daily

As you'd appreciate, I've tried many things and still one day I'm 100% and the next I'm 20% without fail for nearly 2 years now.

The only wacko thing I'll be doing is coming up next - water faaassssttttt

Yes Julie, I was hoping I'd 'grow out of it' however it's hanging around like bad smell unfortunately.

This is why I'll attempt a water only fast for 7 days.