What wakes / woke you up?

Before using cpap most of the time I did not fully come awake during an apnea episode. Out of REM and deep sleep, but not conscious.

However quite often I did wake up. Usually it was in response to a feeling of falling. I developed acrophobia in response, it has gotten much less after years on cpap.

I was wondering what woke others up during an apnea episode? Just curiosity.

However I wonder what all that adrenalin over the years did to my body. Several conditions arise from hyper adrenal conditions. Anyone have any ideas?

"Needing to go to the bathroom" is not a fair option. It has been discussed on here before, there is substantial evidence now that your body goes into "Flush" mode when you wake up for some other reason.

A number of theories as to why this is, ranging from "killing two birds with one stone, since you're already up" (to keep from having to disturb the sleep again later) to "you don't REALLY have to go, your brain just associates that with waking up and makes you think you do".

So I think the better question isn't "what wakes you up", but "When an apnea episode wakes you up, what did you PERCEIVE to be the reason for the awakening?"

Liam, who has traditionally woken up most often when his daughter (a bed hog since she was a baby) climbed into bed with him after her own nightmares.

Most of the time, I would just wake up and not know why. However, last spring, I started to have dreams that I was drowning and trying to get to the surface of the water and couildn't get to the top and get a breath. I would wake up startled and just think it was a stupid dream. Sometimes, I would dream I was locked in a box without air and was struggling really hard to get a breath and was gasping really hard for air. Again, I thought it was a silly dream because I would wake up and could breathe perfectly well. Then I woke up one time and my chest really hurt and was sore for several days and I began to think something wasn't normal about this. I had an ear infection and told my ent doctor abourt it and that was the first time sleep apnea ever came up. He told me people would usually have those kind of dreams and I might want to have a sleep study done if they continued. I didn't have any more for several months then my sister and I went on a trip together and shared a motel room and she woke me up in the middle of the night and told me I better have a sleep study done right away because I stopped breathing constantly and for periods of time that really scared her. Her husband had sleep apnea and had been diagnosed and put on cpap treatment about 5 years earlier. I had been a really loud snorer for the past 20 years. It had gotten to the point where my husband and I slept in separate rooms because every time I dozed off, he would elbow me and tell me to quit snoring so we both decided that if either one of us were gonna get any sleep at all, we better sleep separately. Neither one of us knew very much about sleep apnea so we never considered it. The funny thing is that he snores now and absolutely will not even consider that he might have sleep apnea. He vows he doesn't snore. (Yes he does.) Now, I don't really know what wakes me up. I just wake up once during the night. My doctor told it to just accept once a night as an age thing. I"ll be 54 in March. Once a ngiht is such a relief to the 4 or 5 times I used to wake up. I think the nasal congestion I have might have something to do with it though. Sorry I got off the subject some. I'll quit rambling on now.

Don't make me pick just one reason for waking up. It was usually all three (although not all at once except for once and that was a very scary story no one wants to hear).

It might be interesting thought to find out if the different ways of waking up are particular to different type of apnea is obstructive vs central.

Hmmm I hate it when I start thinking things and they always lead to need more research about.

I never really thought of them as nightmares, but I guess they probably were. Usually I would wake having had one of those dreams where you are in some confrontation or high stress situation. Nothing scary but always got my heart pumping.

My snoring and then gasping for air is what usually woke me up, as well as everyone else in the house.

I did go to the bathroom several, up to 5 times or more a night. Each time I really had to go. I didn't just have to "tinkle". I went to the bathroom more during the night than I did during the day.

I guess that is just my experience so I guess it would go in the above
order.

I thought it was normal to wake up a couple of times during the night, especially closer to morning.

Now are you talking about falling when you get up to go to the bathroom because you got your feet trapped in that long hose on the way to the bathroom?

Just trying to navigate all the way around the posts on the rice posterbed, past the cedar chest at the end of the bed, past the wing back chair, past my wife's night table, past the portable heater and then to the bathroom, yeah lots of opportunites to fall down.

So I guess falling down or nearly falling down, does that count?

Snorenomore,
Sleeping good w/o an elbow in his back.

I can remember having dreams of falling (and never landing) for decades, even as a child. Is this a symptom of apnea? Or is it normal to have this kind of dream?

Curious in the Texas Hill Country

I did mark off, the need to go to the Bathroom. But quite honestly, it's my mask leaking that wakes me up and then because I am awake, I go to the bathroom. I don't wake up due to needing to go to the bathroom, something else always seems to wake me and then while I am awake, my body figures.... What the heck, might as well go to the bathroom now that I am awake!!

Sleeping With The Enemy wrote:My snoring and then gasping for air is what usually woke me up

That was my experience before cpap......

Since cpap, it is mouth blow out noises or dry mouth and throat.

So I guess my vote would be "None Of The Above".

I'm going to the sleep Doc next week to try to get a scrip for a FF Mask and an apap, hopefully my Ins Co will pay for them. I've decided I'm having both even if it's out of my pocket.......
I have learned, from reading this forum, that things can be better.

G00fy217 wrote:it's my mask leaking that wakes me up and then because I am awake, I go to the bathroom. I don't wake up due to needing to go to the bathroom, something else always seems to wake me and then while I am awake, my body figures.... What the heck, might as well go to the bathroom now that I am awake!!

Thats the way it was for me also, before reading the posts here. Now when I wake and think I need to go to the bathroom, I just tell myself it is a trick and usually go right back to sleep.