Debating SA

I'm debating right now whether I have SA or not. I had a GB attack in Dec. and the dr. at that time said i needed to be checked for because after they gave me just 1/2 the dosage of narcotics for pain my sats dropped to where they had to put me on oxygen and heart monitors and I actually ended up spending the night in the ER. When I had my surgery in Jan. I was actually on oxygen until i was discharged 3 days later--ok no big deal-- but here are the other symptoms that I've had on and off for quite some time. I am constantly waking up at night at least 1 time but quite often 2 or 3 times, I don't snore that much at least my husband and family haven't noticed but they have on occassion. I sometimes wake more tired than when I went to bed and wake very groggy most of the time and am frequently tired and fall sleep in the daytime. Some of the peices are fitting together for SA but some don't quite add up so i'm not sure if this is what i'm really dealing with. I know my husband went thru major snoring and other symptoms until he was dx'd last year and put on CPAP now he's a whole new man and won't go anywhere without his CPAP. He has noticed me once or twice stop breathing during the night but I quickly started again before he could wake me. he's also caught me snoring but only on occassion. I have noticed sometimes when reclining on a chair or laying in bed when i begin to drift off, i awake with kind of a "snort" kind of sound like snoring but it wakes me up and as soon as i wake I obviously stop. I'm thinking I do need to see my dr. about this but still deciding if I really need to.

Hi there. I, too, had my GB out in 2007. When I woke up in recovery, they kept telling me to breathe. I had a really hard time, and a panic attack. I think my airway was too relaxed from the anesthesia.

I really don't snore, but I have severe apnea. My wife says I snore very occasionally and lightly, more like heavy breathing than snoring. Sounds like you should get a sleep test! Good luck and the best of health to you.

Hi there. I, too, had my GB out in 2007. When I woke up in recovery, they kept telling me to breathe. I had a really hard time, and a panic attack. I think my airway was too relaxed from the anesthesia.

I was diagnosed with severe apnea this February, and I don't really snore. My wife says I snore very rarely and lightly; more like heavy breathing than snoring.

Sounds like you should get a sleep test! Do you have medical insurance? Mine covered the test and the titration study (where they find the right pressure for you), and I had to pay 20% of the cost of the machine.

Good luck and the best of health to you.


Sorry. Not sure what happened with the double post. I was trying to edit my post.

The only way to know for sure is to speak to your Dr. and have a sleep study done. In my opinion from what you have said it sounds to me like you are a very good candidate for SA..

Those are hard decisions to make. Looking at both sides, what do you have to gain by putting it off? And what do you have to gain by going ahead and checking it out? Seems to me the balance is on the side of checking it out. I know I didn't have a lot of snoring -- but I was diagnosed with severe apnia. I'm glad I found out and am finally reaping the benefits of treatment.
CLW

Good to know about the snoring because I thought you mostly had to have snoring to have SA. I have read on this board that it isn't neccesarily the case but most often it is. Thanks--I do have a call into the sleep center but haven't heard back yet.

I disagree with Dyanna a little bit.....I think the simplest thing to do is.....get your hands on a recording Oximeter with software......and wear it for a couple of weeks while you sleep. Generate a report for each night.....and a pattern will emerge. You'll see whether your O2 saturation is dropping too low....or not.

I can recommend a SPO-7500....it's a good machine....the software is good....and Turner Medical is OK to do business with. The Oximeter will cost you $500......but, that's less money....BY FAR....than what a sleep study will cost....and you have the tool (the Oximeter) after you've finished testing yourself. My Oximeter has helped five different people...besides myself....so, it's not a waste to own one.

In my opinion, using a recording Oximeter is one of the best ways to quickly tell whether or not you have a problem with sleep apnea....and you can check yourself in your own bed. If you find that you have desats, then you might want to go for a sleep study....to find out what sort of CPAP equipment you need.

Gerald

Gerald wrote:I disagree with Dyanna a little bit.....I think the simplest thing to do is.....get your hands on a recording Oximeter with software......and wear it for a couple of weeks while you sleep. Generate a report for each night.....and a pattern will emerge. You'll see whether your O2 saturation is dropping too low....or not.

I can recommend a SPO-7500....it's a good machine....the software is good....and Turner Medical is OK to do business with. The Oximeter will cost you $500......but, that's less money....BY FAR....than what a sleep study will cost....and you have the tool (the Oximeter) after you've finished testing yourself. My Oximeter has helped five different people...besides myself....so, it's not a waste to own one.

In my opinion, using a recording Oximeter is one of the best ways to quickly tell whether or not you have a problem with sleep apnea....and you can check yourself in your own bed. If you find that you have desats, then you might want to go for a sleep study....to find out what sort of CPAP equipment you need.

Gerald

Then I hope you don't mind if I disagree with you a little bit, Gerald, based on my understanding.

I agree that low blood oxygen is a bad thing and that it can sometimes be used as a sort of prescreening--but only in the sense that the existence of desaturation would be an indicator*; the lack of desats would not serve as proof, or as an indicator, that a person was problem-free with their breathing at night.

Low O2 is only one of many problems related to sleep apnea. The effect that sleep-disordered breathing has on sleep architecture can be highly damaging without significant desats. It is possible to have a serious sleep-disordered-breathing problem without desaturations that would show up on a home oximeter, as I understand it.

So if a person has a few of the indicators of a sleep problem, and especially if it involves apparent breathing issues, I would recommend pushing for a sleep study, in harmony with Dyanna's post, and doing so sooner rather than later.

A home sleep study involves more than a pulse-ox.

jeff

http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides ... ptoms.html

*[edit: I changed "a positive indicator" to simply "an indicator," to prevent possible confusion.]

I totally agree with jnk!

You need a sleep study to determine whether or not you have sleep apnea. You appear to have symptoms.

An oximeter checks just one thing and there are sleep apnea patients who do not have significant oxygen destats as jnk said. A sleep study checks for so much more!

I'm with jnk! Get a sleep study sooner rather than later!

Hawthorne wrote:I totally agree with jnk!

You need a sleep study to determine whether or not you have sleep apnea. You appear to have symptoms.

An oximeter checks just one thing and there are sleep apnea patients who do not have significant oxygen destats as jnk said. A sleep study checks for so much more!

I'm with jnk! Get a sleep study sooner rather than later!

My husband first had a oximeter overnight to prescreen for SA then he had the full sleep study because that showed he was de-sating. I just talked to a sleep center and they said i should make an appt with dr. or i could wait and go to their dr. in June. they said that the turn around for a full sleep study is only about 2 weeks once my dr. orders it.

Quote from Jeff's post.....

"Low O2 is only one of many problems related to sleep apnea. The effect that sleep-disordered breathing has on sleep architecture can be highly damaging without significant desats. It is possible to have a serious sleep-disordered-breathing problem without desaturations that would show up on a home oximeter, as I understand it."

Jeff.....

With all due respects.........I'm having a hard time understanding your position. It's always been my understanding that a CPAP machine is used to prevent "suffocation"....and my understanding of "suffocation" means "lack of oxygen". It seems to me that the underlying cause of many problems is "lack of oxygen".

I don't understand the term "sleep architecture". Is there a definition available that I can understand?

Also, please let me know what sort of "sleep-disordered breathing problem" can we have that doesn't have anything to do with a lack of O2......thereby not showing up on an oximeter report?

I'm just a simple mechanic (a guy who studies Physics) and I just can't understand your position. Please elaborate on "sleep architecture" and "sleep-disordered breathing problems without desaturations".

Gerald

In my opinion, you should get your doctor to order the sleep study. I'd be calling my doctor tomorrow! Sleep apnea is not something to ignore.

You need to find out if you have it and, if you do, get on cpap asap!

If it were me, and I had an ovenight oximeter test that did not show destats, I would STILL get a sleep study, if I had your symptoms.

You need to know for certain.

Hawthorne wrote:In my opinion, you should get your doctor to order the sleep study. I'd be calling my doctor tomorrow! Sleep apnea is not something to ignore.

You need to find out if you have it and, if you do, get on cpap asap!

If it were me, and I had an ovenight oximeter test that did not show destats, I would STILL get a sleep study, if I had your symptoms.

You need to know for certain.

I agree and would be calling my family Dr as soon as possible and getting a sleep study set up.

Gerald wrote:Quote from Jeff's post.....

"Low O2 is only one of many problems related to sleep apnea. The effect that sleep-disordered breathing has on sleep architecture can be highly damaging without significant desats. It is possible to have a serious sleep-disordered-breathing problem without desaturations that would show up on a home oximeter, as I understand it."

Jeff.....

With all due respects.........I'm having a hard time understanding your position. It's always been my understanding that a CPAP machine is used to prevent "suffocation"....and my understanding of "suffocation" means "lack of oxygen". It seems to me that the underlying cause of many problems is "lack of oxygen".

I don't understand the term "sleep architecture". Is there a definition available that I can understand?

Also, please let me know what sort of "sleep-disordered breathing problem" can we have that doesn't have anything to do with a lack of O2......thereby not showing up on an oximeter report?

I'm just a simple mechanic (a guy who studies Physics) and I just can't understand your position. Please elaborate on "sleep architecture" and "sleep-disordered breathing problems without desaturations".

Gerald

Gladly! You do me honor in asking me, since there are so many here who could answer those questions better than I can. And you are by no means a simple man, Gerarld! I've read your posts and enjoyed them on a number of occasions.

Sleep is not well understood in some respects, but enough is known about it that at this point medical science recognizes different kinds of sleep, or sleep "stages," that are a part of the normal sleep process, or "architecture." It seems that each stage of sleep plays an important role in our health. Light sleep is better than no sleep, but for truly restorative sleep to occur, our nightly sleep needs to include a sufficient amount of dream-sleep and deep sleep. The different kinds of sleep occur in cycles during the night. In the case of any form of sleep-disordered breathing, such as obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, the disruption of that cycle can result in daytime fatigue and sleepiness, not to mention mental and emotional problems, and all those things can be life-threatening in obvious ways, and in ways less obvious that are still being studied.

The important part of all that in the context of this thread is that disruptions in the sleep cycle that prevent us from entering or remaining in deep sleep or dream-sleep can seriously affect our bodies and our minds. So if a person has good blood oxygen all night, but goes weeks/months without effective sleep, that person may suffer serious and potentially deadly consequences.

That is one reason that sleep studies involve connecting wires that monitor brain activity. That way, for example, if a person's breathing changes in such a way that doesn't desaturate them but that still arouses the brain (an "arousal"), that "event" is recorded as something that might be fixed with air pressure that would keep the airway open in a way that allows better, uninterrupted, sleep.

In other words, air pressure is applied to the airway of a sleep apnea sufferer to keep the airway open not only to make sure they are able to get enough oxygen (and get rid of carbon dioxide and the like) but also to help prevent changes in breathing from ruining the quality of sleep that is needed for the person to live a healthier and more productive life.

Treating sleep-disordered breathing isn't just about oxygen--it is also about fixing the quality of the sleep itself.

Hope that helps. Some of it is an oversimplification, but when it comes to discussing anything as complicated as sleep, any discussion is an oversimplification.

jeff

Hello. Sounds like you've been doing some reading on here, so you've probably read some posts lamenting the doctors who did not think to check for sleep apnea sooner, even in the presence of multiple classic symptoms. But this is a switch, doubting the doctor who recommends being evaluated for sleep apnea, even after 2 hospital encounters and multiple symptoms with their indications.

I just edited out a paragraph as I realized it sounded like I was giving you a hard time. I'm really just suggesting that your main question was answered before you even thought to ask. You need to be evaluated for sleep apnea. ER docs and gallbladder surgeons have nothing to gain from that recommendation. Take them at their word. Do you know exactly how low your oxygen dropped or how great is your risk? i'd want to know that right now, and base my urgency on that info.

Oh, and every symptom may not fit with OSA, you might have more than one thing going on. Deal with things as they become known and what's left should then be clearer. When the sleep clinic calls back, if they are scheduling too far out, you could ask to be called in case of a cancellation.

Let us know how things progress. I wish you well and hope a sleep study puts your mind at ease either way it goes.
Kathy