How many REMEMBER apnea events??

[valgal777]

Doctors think you're crazy when you say you experience your apneas--which I do some--particularly the sleep onset ones (when I'm still in a light stage of sleep, I'm sure). I did read somewhere once that Central apnea patients are more likely to remember events--does anyone have any date/written sources on that?? I am a central apnea patient (they call it mixed, but that's only because med prof moronically calls all hypopneas obstructive by definition, even if 100% of your apneas are Central.
So curious how many others remember some of their events! Thanks!

[avi123]

Isn't time for you to teach those moronic docters?

[DavidCarolina]

No offense, but ive heard Physicians without OSA themselves say all kinds of theoretical mumo jumbo.

I DEFINITELY know when Im suffering a severe sleep event but I get a particular type of nightmare going, and without fail wake up in bad
shape, out of breath, trembling, agitated, exhausted.

Sometimes the mask was misadjusted, leakage, sometimes i had wrong positional sleeping, sometimes it was reflux or not having the right head elevation. There are so many personalized triggers you have to learn your own body really well.

It also can help to investiagate other things, such as adrenal function or even serotonin levels or panic attacks nocturnally. They can all trigger sleep events.

And then theres the issue of oximetry even if you have good AHI numbers.

[RogerSC]

To address the original question, which I for one find interesting *smile*, it sounds like this is pretty individual. I had no idea that I had sleep apnea until my wife told me that I was stopping breathing for maybe 20 seconds or so sometimes, and it was scaring her. I still have no experience of the fact that I'm stopping breathing (although I do it a lot less, other than the centrals that I now get since I've been on CPAP).

[zoocrewphoto]

Sometimes, I would wake myself up with my snorting. So, I knew I wasn't breathing right.

Also, while I knew I had sleep apnea for many years, I had no idea that the gasping and choking fits were related. Now that I am using cpap, I don't have those anymore

[eeckel]

I've also wakened myself with snoring. That hasn't happened since I started CPAP.

[locust78]

If it wasn't for my awareness of apnea events, I probably wouldn't be on CPAP today. Time and again, I would be dropping off into sleep, only to be rudely awakened by gasping and snorting. Other times, when I was already fast asleep, I'd have the same dream (of drowning or suffocating), then be jolted awake, gasping. I guess it's good that I had these experiences. If I was one of those who could get through the night without any obvious apnea experiences, I may have been far less inclined to pursue and stick with CPAP therapy.

[DiverCTHunter]

I've also wakened myself with snoring. That hasn't happened since I started CPAP.

I knew I had it because my roommates in college kept tossing shoes at me whenever I started snoring / gasping. Took me a few more years to actually get treated.

[archangle]

I'd sometimes remember waking up fighting for a breath. Sometimes I'd remember a dream of some sort associated with it.

I don't think I ever consciously remember lying there trying to breathe and being unable to breathe. I'd sort of remember the end of the event, a vague feeling of choking and maybe some sort of vague foggy recollection or feeling of what happened before.

[The Sheikh]

A dog can be a good indication of how the night goes. For years, before CPAP, my dog wouldn't sleep on the same bed. He started out next to me but the snoring and tossing would scare him to the floor within 30 minutes. But now that I sleep quietly and hardly move around, he snuggles all night.

As for remembering apnea events - Before CPAP, I have often awakened hearing the last snort of a central apnea event. Since using the ASV machine, I have never awakened to an event that I know of. The apnea events are very rare in the data. Love my ASV.

T

[blueh2o]

My first realization I had sleep apnea was from a central event. After another long night of non-sleep, I was drifting off when I caught myself not breathing. It was an epiphany for me because prior to that I had no idea why I couldn't sleep. Almost two years later and I'm still struggling to find the silver bullet for sleeping. When I first got the CPAP I could differentiate between my central events and my obstructive events. I was still semi-conscious during my central events as they are in the sleep-wake transition. The obstructive events were like a door slamming in the wind. I could hear it and feel it in the back of my throat. In fact, a small snore woke me up this morning after I took out my oral appliance so even now I'm somewhat conscious of it. Apnea's a bitch (excuse my language)...

[JeffL]

My own snoring used to wake me up, but after 10 years of refusing to do anything about it, I finally gave in when I'd frequently wake up gasping for breath. Haven't had a single event of either since I went on the hose.