What symptoms do you have?

[tetragon]

Myself? All that happened was that my doctor thought I looked tired. It was initially attributed to my iron levels, but once that was dealt with, she still thought I looked tired. She asked a bunch of questions and decided I had insomnia. She sent me off to a sleep study telling me that she'd prescribe sleeping pills if the results were normal. Boring, I know.

[retrodave15]

I forgot to add, the weekend before my first sleep study I ended up in the ER with chest pain. This was attributed to an arrhythmia, as I have a 1 degree heart block. When I asked the Cardiologist if I should keep my sleep study, he said that was one test that I could not skip. I just had my follow up with my cardiologist, if my blood pressure stays down looks like we might get rid of a med.

Despite having triglycerides of 700+ my heart is in good shape - no blockages. Now I just need to get them down, hopefully the Lovaza will help.

Dave

[chunkyfrog]

Some symptoms I had, but not any more:
Waking up many times a night with very high pulse rate and horrible headaches.
Being so wired while awake, I couldn't tolerate caffeine.
Involuntarily taking naps at inconvenient times--like at work, or while driving.
Not being able to concentrate.
Having a very short temper; or instant weepiness.
Fatigue so bad I can't believe I am the same person now.

[osmium sleeper]

1. Not being able to fall to sleep, despite being exhausted.
2. Morning headaches.
3. Waking up exhausted.
4. Being unable to function without a significant quantity of real stimulants.
5. General disinterest, fatigue, malaise.
6. Degrading memory.
7. Waking up on average of 3 to 5 times per night from nightmares, sometimes drenched in sweat (rarely).

Also, I dont have any of the OSA risk factors, other than being male.

[idamtnboy]

I had two primary symptoms, a lot of daytime sleepiness, especially while driving, and ... and.... and..... Oh, I remember, I couldn't remember! The first has been pretty well fixed. The second, well .... thank goodness I have age for an excuse!!

[archangle]

The results of my sleep study were that I do have sleep apnea and I will soon be doing the sleep/CPAP study.

Honestly, I'm not 100% convinced I have sleep apnea. I think I sleep fairly well, although I do doze off watching TV or riding in a car if I'm not driving. I am usually reasonably refreshed when I get up in the morning.

If the sleep study really shows sleep apnea, you've got it. Even if you don't have any sleep apnea symptoms, you can have it, and it can be killing you slowly with heart damage, brain damage, etc. It could kill you with a stroke some night.

[Kody]

Wow reading some of these really sounds familiar. For me it wasn't that I was Sleepy at all, more just completely exhausted with zero energy. Wake up like I didn't get any sleep at all, and could hardly get out of bed. Would take a few hours and a lot of coffee to get it together enough to deal with the world on a coherent level. A lot of the mental symptoms, moody, irritability, anxiety, over reacting, depression, and forgetting things. I started lining up things I needed to take with me to work in front of the front door so I wouldn't forget them, also started using a lot of sticky notes. At a routine physical the doctor was saying how good my tests were etc. I asked him why then am I SO exhausted all the time? Luckily for me he spotted the symptoms right away as he also had Sleep Apnea. I'm also still a work in progress, still have a hard time starting up in the morning, but a lot of the other symptoms are gone now thank goodness.

[Kitatonic]

I was diagnosed incidentally during my husband's sleep apnea apt, when he complained about my snoring and nocturia. Turns out, I have severe sleep apnea (48.6 AHI/desats to the 60s). After being treated for three months now, I can count on SO many symptoms that have completely resolved: cold toes despite two double thick socks, mild headaches, unintentional weight loss, poor reading concentration and low energy (retired early). After the first morning of CPAP, I wanted to run again after seven years. CPAP has been the best magic bullet (AHI o.4 average, sats above 95 all night) ever!

[jabman]

Honestly, I'm not 100% convinced I have sleep apnea. I think I sleep fairly well, although I do doze off watching TV or riding in a car if I'm not driving. I am usually reasonably refreshed when I get up in the morning.

I too thought that I slept well, never knew I was waking up 78 times a night gasping for breath. To me I skept through the night even though I felt like I slept only 2 hours every day.

[Perrybucsdad]

Big things for me were

• Waking up feeling like I had a hangover every morning (even though I no longer drink)
• Constantly exhausted
• Lack of sex drive

[xenablue]

Aside from many of the symptoms mentioned, there is something I thought of a week or so ago whilst waiting for my DH to come out of shoulder surgery.

Three years ago - 2 years before OSA Dx - I had some day surgery. All went smoothly without incident, however when I was taken back to my 'room' to finish recovery, it took over two hours to get my oxygen levels to stay above 90%.

The damn beeper went off every few seconds and when I'd look up it was at 60%. The whole time I was having oxygen, but kept stopping breathing whilst still drowsy from the anaesthetic.

I'm quite convinced that this was symptom of OSA on thinking back to this. The nurses were a little concerned, but once I kept O2 levels up, was discharged and I didn't think about it again until recently.

Also - I agree with jabman - I too believe my T2 diabetes was brought on by many years of undiagnosed OSA.

Cheers,
xena

[nobody]

I knew I must have sleep apnea when I would occasionally wake up with my throat closed, gasping for air, choking and coughing. I was only aware of this happening sometimes, had no idea it was going on many many times during the night. I have severe sleep apnea that is well treated with a CPAP. I'd say go get the sleep study, I wish I'd been more insistent on it much earlier, but still I'm grateful for the diagnosis and the machine now!

[liliaqha]

"I've been on PAPpy since August."

LOL I think I have a new name for "the machine".

[scooter133]

So Many Great lists, I just copied and pasted most of them. Glad to see many of us are alike and not alone.

1. Snored, though mostly while on back.
2. Headaches when I wake along with hungover feeling
3. Awoke frequently at night, sometimes to pee
4. Loss of short term memory (didn't know where I was, what I was supposed to be doing for a few moments now and then)
5. Daytime grogginess, severe at times, increased caffeine no affect, stopped Caffeine
6. Depression Symptoms - Been through all the Meds, Off all but one (Buspar) for Bruxism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruxism Teeth grinding/clenching)
7. Low Testosterone - Chicken or the Egg - Caused by CSA, or as a result of having CSA - Jury is still out - Taking 150mg IM Injections 1/week
8. Bruxism - Related or not, we are not sure.
9. All kinds of Sinus Issues, stuffy before bed and several hours after I wake. No Allergies, been tested. No Meds or rinses seem to help.
10. Moody at times. I liken it to my Wife's PMS. Though the Testosterone Injections are helping there.

Some of my Symptoms are caused by Bruxism too,OSA is associated with Bruxism whether by cause or effect. So hard to Isolate.

Some of my Symptoms, Headaches for one, was dramatically helped by wearing a mouth guard while I slept. I have yet to start my CPAP (going to on January 2nd) so we'll see how the mouth guard and the face mask work together.

Scott<-

[Alshain]

I never actually had any symptom of apnea, except for one. I only found the apnea while looking for RLS (which I never found) due to leg pain. My heart palpitations went away after about 2 months of treatment and never came back. All other symptoms, I still have. Don't know what they are, but they aren't the apnea.