Children with Apnea

Is there anyone here who has children with sleep apnea, or has had childhood apnea? After being diagnosed with sleep apnea and thinking about it, I am concerned that my 6 year old son might have it. I didn't even realize kids could have it until my doctor said that his 10 year old boys both have it. I haven't watched him breathing at night really, but he has some other symptoms I am curious about. I see here that people talk about having to get up to pee in the night, and how that is a sign of sleep apnea, because your body isn't supposed to need to urinate while sleeping. My son wets the bed pretty much every night. He has always had large tonsils and he snores sometimes. I am planning on checking on him tonight to see if I can catch any apnea episodes, but in the meantime, do any of you have any pearls of wisdom on the matter? Thank you!

Get him tested. Snoring alone would not necessarily be a symptom on its own, but together with large tonsils and bedwetting - seen often in children with apnea - you do have reason to be concerned and I wouldn't wait til you've asked everyone out here in cyberland about it.

Granddaughter didn't have a bed wetting problem but she had other issues... like snoring and huge tonsils. She had a in lab study and her mom was with her the entire time. She was 12. It was no big deal and when they took the wires off at 6:00 a.m., they went out to breakfast. Fortunately, she didn't have sleep apnea, but it was good to be able to rule it out. If it were me, I would talk to his doctor about having a sleep study.

I wish my apnea could have been identified when I was younger.
I had the "pursuit dream" (where you are being chased) since I was under ten.
Any dream of extreme exertion or fear can be evidence of an apnea.
It is a terrible experience to have these dreams as a child.

chunkyfrog wrote:I wish my apnea could have been identified when I was younger.
I had the "pursuit dream" (where you are being chased) since I was under ten.
Any dream of extreme exertion or fear can be evidence of an apnea.
It is a terrible experience to have these dreams as a child.

You may be on to something, at age 7, I had a dream many times where I was running across a empty street, a car came at me fast, the harder I tride to run out of the was the weaker I got, and slower. I always woke up sweating, before impact.

Even odder, at age 14, I went to the local park 5 miles from home on my bike, like I often did. The road in front of the park is crossed by a rail road track, it is at a 30 degree angle to the road it crosses, the crossing is poor, as are most. I alway worried about crossing it would cause the bike to skid along the track and dump the bike. It never did, until this one time, I was going along about 20 mph, it was damp outside and had sprinkled some. I came up on the crossing and you guessed it, the front wheel slid and followed the rail, down the bike went in the middle of the lane. That was enough, no, not so, a semi w/trailer was behind me about 4 car links. He saw the bike go down and set his brakes, skidding to a stop. He jumped out of the cab expecting to find me a grease spot under the cab. I had fallen between his wheels, head under his front axle, didn't ever smash the bike. Just road Rash! Truth can be stranger than fiction! Jim

MoodyMollypending wrote:Is there anyone here who has children with sleep apnea, or has had childhood apnea? After being diagnosed with sleep apnea and thinking about it, I am concerned that my 6 year old son might have it. I didn't even realize kids could have it until my doctor said that his 10 year old boys both have it. I haven't watched him breathing at night really, but he has some other symptoms I am curious about. I see here that people talk about having to get up to pee in the night, and how that is a sign of sleep apnea, because your body isn't supposed to need to urinate while sleeping. My son wets the bed pretty much every night. He has always had large tonsils and he snores sometimes. I am planning on checking on him tonight to see if I can catch any apnea episodes, but in the meantime, do any of you have any pearls of wisdom on the matter? Thank you!

Large tonsils/snoring/bedwetting - don't worry about observing apnea episodes - get a consultation with a sleep doctor and a pediatric ENT.

See https://www.google.com/search?ei=ZEkCWu ... 1uOyVya8LI

... and http://doctorstevenpark.com/myths-about ... bedwetting

xxyzx wrote:

MoodyMollypending wrote:Is there anyone here who has children with sleep apnea, or has had childhood apnea? After being diagnosed with sleep apnea and thinking about it, I am concerned that my 6 year old son might have it. I didn't even realize kids could have it until my doctor said that his 10 year old boys both have it. I haven't watched him breathing at night really, but he has some other symptoms I am curious about. I see here that people talk about having to get up to pee in the night, and how that is a sign of sleep apnea, because your body isn't supposed to need to urinate while sleeping. My son wets the bed pretty much every night. He has always had large tonsils and he snores sometimes. I am planning on checking on him tonight to see if I can catch any apnea episodes, but in the meantime, do any of you have any pearls of wisdom on the matter? Thank you!

===============

many thinks make you urinate at night
apnea is just one cause from many

bed wetting is another problem
see a doctor

is he overweight?
does he have the other key signs for diagnosing apnea ?
then the snoring might matter and not just be a snore making noise


you would do better with an IHT than trying to catch him yourself
rent it on the internet faster better cheaper easier than a doctor and some sleep lab
it is definitive for apnea

He's been seen by his doctor about the bed wetting, she just told me that it's something he'll grow out of and gave me some ideas about how to deal with it, like setting timers etc... He's not overweight or have a large neck or any of the other "key signs" for diagnosing apnea, but then again, I don't have any of them either and I have apnea. I'm just seeing a pattern with him having the symptoms I already mentioned and how they could correlate with sleep apnea.

chunkyfrog wrote:I wish my apnea could have been identified when I was younger.
I had the "pursuit dream" (where you are being chased) since I was under ten.
Any dream of extreme exertion or fear can be evidence of an apnea.
It is a terrible experience to have these dreams as a child.

That's interesting, I asked him what he dreams about, and he says he always has bad dreams, usually about scary animals and such though, not really pursuit dreams. I also asked my other kids if they have dreams, they both said they don't dream/can't remember them as soon as they wake up.

Thanks for the replies, I think I'll call his doctor tomorrow and ask if he can/should be seen about this.

Molly - your doctor is not up to date with apnea and its symptoms in childhood. It's not about 'fixing' the bedwetting but understanding that it's a big red flag for apnea in children (and should disappear after treatment). Many of us had it as children and only recently discovered it was a symptom. Your doctor doesn't understand, but someone trained in sleep medicine would. Please don't onder this any longer online or with a pediatrician/GP who's not informed. We don't want to worry you but do know what we're talking about.

xxyzx wrote:

Goofproof wrote:

chunkyfrog wrote:I wish my apnea could have been identified when I was younger.
I had the "pursuit dream" (where you are being chased) since I was under ten.
Any dream of extreme exertion or fear can be evidence of an apnea.
It is a terrible experience to have these dreams as a child.

You may be on to something, at age 7, I had a dream many times where I was running across a empty street, a car came at me fast, the harder I tride to run out of the was the weaker I got, and slower. I always woke up sweating, before impact.

Even odder, at age 14, I went to the local park 5 miles from home on my bike, like I often did. The road in front of the park is crossed by a rail road track, it is at a 30 degree angle to the road it crosses, the crossing is poor, as are most. I alway worried about crossing it would cause the bike to skid along the track and dump the bike. It never did, until this one time, I was going along about 20 mph, it was damp outside and had sprinkled some. I came up on the crossing and you guessed it, the front wheel slid and followed the rail, down the bike went in the middle of the lane. That was enough, no, not so, a semi w/trailer was behind me about 4 car links. He saw the bike go down and set his brakes, skidding to a stop. He jumped out of the cab expecting to find me a grease spot under the cab. I had fallen between his wheels, head under his front axle, didn't ever smash the bike. Just road Rash! Truth can be stranger than fiction! Jim

==============

always walk a bike over RR tracks

We are the generation before you, we were built tougher. Didn't require seat belts or air bags, rode in the bed of trucks on gravel roads, we didn't wear choconut husks on our head when we rode bikes. Here if you walked your bike over tracks, we would have been hit by the train. Jim

Julie wrote:Molly - your doctor is not up to date with apnea and its symptoms in childhood. It's not about 'fixing' the bedwetting but understanding that it's a big red flag for apnea in children (and should disappear after treatment). Many of us had it as children and only recently discovered it was a symptom. Your doctor doesn't understand, but someone trained in sleep medicine would. Please don't onder this any longer online or with a pediatrician/GP who's not informed. We don't want to worry you but do know what we're talking about.

Bed wetting is very common in young children, and isn't nessesarily only a huge red flag for apnea. It has actually been over a year since talking to his doctor about bed wetting. So he was younger, and even more of a common age for bed wetting. I don't think his doctor wasn't doing her job by not suggesting he has sleep apnea. But you are right, she may have outdated knowledge of sleep apnea, and a specialist would have a better understanding of the symptoms. So now that I'm gathering more information for myself on apnea, and seeing how his symptoms point towards it, I can take that info to his doctor, get a referral, and get him the help he may need. I'm not going to wait any longer, but I had to ask first so I know that my concerns are founded, and I'm not going to be wasting anybody's time. I don't think one day of me asking questions online and researching is going to have any impact on my son's health. Thank you for your suggestions.

We don't need to first find info on a condition and 'not waste anybody's time' if we're worried about something. People today, because they have Google, think they almost need to diagnose things on their own before seeing a doctor, but that's not the case at all and most doctors would gladly have their time 'wasted', especially when it comes to children, rather than see patients who've waited too long to come in because they didn't want to bother the doctor. Without being 'bothered' they'd be out of work! Bedwetting is common, but beyond a toddler's age, is not something to be put off by our deciding when to be seen... not if it happens 'every night' as you said it did - we're not doctors, and if a doctor shows impatience at a concerned parent for asking, they shouldn't be licensed.

I wasn't trying to make you feel guilty for not acting, especially not in light of people having the idea they were wasting doctors' time if their complaints turned out not to be urgent, but too often people will spend so much time googling and asking around about e.g. chest pain (if you can beleve it!) that their conditions worsen over time and they cheat themselves and make doctors' jobs harder. It's not 'you' but the system today that needs changing, though I'm not sure how that will happen.

MoodyMollypending wrote:Thanks for the replies, I think I'll call his doctor tomorrow and ask if he can/should be seen about this.

Regardless of what that doctor says, get your son a consultation with a sleep doctor and a pediatric ENT.

I also had horrible night mares and sleep terrors as a kid. (Bed wetting issues also) Very interesting dreams too - one was like being inside of a kaleidoscope and the level of fear and dread would start scaling up and up and up till all the pretty colors would start flashing and then end in a strong point of light like when you turned off an old picture tube TV set. Then I'd wake up gasping for air with my heart racing like I'd just survived a near death experience. (maybe I had... )

The other dreams were not quite as abstract but all of them had a kind of central theme. Usually would start out in a normal if not odd situation that would slowly get creepier and creepier then I would relies I was being hunted or stalked by something or someone... My thing is I wouldn't always wake up when I got caught. Dream of falling? Most people say they wake up before they hit the ground. I wouldn't, It's a very very weird feeling when you hit. Everything would go black and I'd have this feeling like I'd been doused in warm Novocaine, akin to that dead feeling you have when being put under by anesthetic so I'm not sure what kind of things were going on inside my head but I'm sure with my low oxygen levels I don't want to know.

I used to be terrified of going to sleep - was scared of the dark and didn't want to go to bed as a kid. I didn't start liking my room to be pitch black until after I got my first CPAP machine. One of those Resperonics machines with the blue headlights on top that would light up your whole room. Ironic I know. I kept a black wash cloth that would rest on top to cover the lights.

I got tested in my late teens but the whole test was a disaster and the night of the test I most likely didn't get any REM sleep at all. (That's when my apnea would get scarry bad( I didn't know any of what I know now then to dispute the "inconclusive" test results and demand another test. 10+ years went by and I kept getting worse so I went in for testing again and was diagnosed with profoundly severe sleep apnea. AHI in the high 70's and desats during REM in the mid to low 50's Tech said at one point I stopped breathing completely for over 2 min. Makes sense now why I was so good at breath holding during the day. I was getting in a lot of practice at night.

I could average 3+ min while I used to swim in the pool. ( I could go longer but that was back in the day of the TV Show "Resque 911" and I would always hear that voice telling me that brain damage starts after 4 min with no oxygen so I would always stop and come up for air before I hit 4 ) I used to practice to see how many lengths of the pool I could swim before having to come up for more air. Lots and lots of my child hood symptoms and issues made sense after my diagnosis and further research.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I personally think that every single person ( starting when we're kids ) should have an over night oximetry reading done no mater what at least once every 5 years or so as part of a full physical and standard health care. It's such a cheap and harmless test and if it shows issues, could help so many people not just with apnea issues but with other health issues that could be caught out by oximetry testing. Maybe once every 10 years but 5 years if you have a family history or other risk factors.

If the test shows no desats but the person is still having sleep issues a follow up with a qualified sleep specialist could still be done. But I wonder how many people are out there who's oxygen levels are dropping each night that could be flagged and diagnosed if they simply tested for it. Have it become one of the excepted tests that gets performed on a person. Like medicare recommendations that you get tested for bla bla bla at such and such time etc... If people are worried about the costs of such a test - I wonder what the savings would be in catching and treating desats that lead to organ and tissue damage over a prolonged time when left untreated. How many cases of dementia or heart attack or stroke could be completely avoided and those costs would never have to be spent instead could go elsewhere?

I still think that Sleep Apnea is under rated and not as well known as it should be. I have a feeling if we looked for it we'd find it all over.

Rest well!

Gryphon