Is sleep apnea the source of my anxiety?

Happy new year hose heads.

I have a question I am hoping to get answers to. I have been suffering from sleep apnea and deprivation for some years now. I am feeling like i am getting a full nights sleep, (7 hours) Just about every night. I am currently working on a more proactive approach in trying to research my sleep pattern with the help of the proper software and card readers to see my sleep numbers to verify that I am in fact sleeping every night and not still having apnea and deprivation episodes. Reason being that I feel rested and can go the whole day without naps, Im usually not tired during the day but I am suffering from frequent anxieties.

I am an outgoing person with loads of friends. I love people and love the company of friends. The last few years though have been a strain on some of my friendships because of my anxieties i have been feeling. Let me explain. Let's say there is a get together coming up. No pressure as everyone attending are all friends of mine. As the date draws near, I feel happy and anxious all at the same time right up to the actual date. When that day comes, I can actually feel my heart rate rise for no apparent reason. Mind you this doesn't happen all the time, just frequent enough to ask why?

The day of the party I am showering to get ready and as soon as i get out of the shower I am sweating. If it's summer time and hot out, (I live in Michigan) it's 10 times worse. I am already feeling uncomfortable and i haven't even left the house. When i get to the party, It seems the more people at the party, the worse i get. For some reason, I am sweating my ass off and i haven't done anything. Yeah I do have weight to lose and working out does eleviate these symptoms, but not all the time. So, while i am at these get togethers, I'm having to explain how hot i am and why I am sweating to all my friends. On a couple of occasions I have to leave and go home to change shirts all the while doing everything i can to cool off. It's fruitless because as the night goes on, I'm a mess. Sometimes I settle down and actually have a good time. If i can jump into a pool and cool off so everyone can't tell i'm sweating, I'm happy and adjust and the anxieties subside. If i am in a basement or a room with no moving air, I need to walk out side every 5 to 10 minuets just to gather my thoughts and try to cool off. I have to have moving air in order to feel comfortable because when i start sweating, i'm talking about soaked hair and back. people do not want to even touch me because my shirt is all wet. I know this is not normal but it leaves me to wonder why this happens. is this a direct result of my sleep disorder and is this ever going to go away?

This is quite personal to me but I feel comfortable asking you if you are experiencing the same problems?
Do you think this is a social disorder or is this a byproduct of my sleep disorder. Will this go away if i commit myself to losing weight and focus my energies someplace else? I feel like I already know the answer but am wondering if i am not alone out here. Neal

Nealbopper wrote:........
Do you think this is a social disorder or is this a byproduct of my sleep disorder. Will this go away if i commit myself to losing weight and focus my energies someplace else? I feel like I already know the answer but am wondering if i am not alone out here. Neal

Neal,

I had anxiety and depression the last few years before I was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea.

These days, with cpap working properly, I have no depression and rarely have anxiety. When I do have anxiety it is mild and I can trace it back to something going wrong with the cpap process the prior night or two.

You do need to use a card reader and software to monitor apneas, hypopneas and leak rates. My experience is that sleep labs have a difficult job to prescribe an optimal pressure based on one night trying to sleep in a strange environment. I had to monitor things at home and experiment until I found the appropriate cpap settings. Only then did my depression and anxiety go away.

You can rid yourself of anxiety with a good cpap therapy!

Hang in there and get your cpap therapy optimized,

Sure,I can understand what you have aptly described.
Caffeine and alcohol indulgence likely doesn't help any,same for a BMI in the obese range and these are things you probably already know.
Perfuse sweating and hot flash episodes may appear random but they are flight or fight responses that occur out of context.

Carving the Thanksgiving turkey and preparing to pack it up for delivery to a house full of relatives can abrubtly bring on an episode like you describe.
Yet,I am unconvinced that the event itself is the trigger.Like yourself,I have learned to "ride it out" and liken the condition to someone who is prone to 'blushing' or turning red-faced uncontrollably for the slightest reason.

While it is remiss to self-diagnose,I am loathe to hear the terms "panic attack" or "anxiety disorder" put into play here.
In the hereditary line of things,as well enviromental upbringing I should like to think we have developed a higher sense of when to bail out or stand ground but have yet to manage the stimulus that the sudden onset of fear provides.

I have always been acutely aware of my surroundings and have experienced what may be coined as "tough enviroment".
Survival meant knowing when to dodge a bullet and when to stand firm but that didn't make me any less afraid of what may come.I knew it was destiny at a higher level.

Surviving into a now more mellow age has left me nodding my head up and down as I read your words and how I wear the episodes as a badge of my past.
Will CPAP help?I have not used it long enough to answer.
As I age,I know that discovering the actual feared stimulus and 'gradual' exposure to it, will be much more preferable to the shock and awe of my youth.

I'm no expert and a newbie, but I'm also a licensed therapist. I'd look at the onset of your anxiety. Does it coincide with anything else in your life? A major event that you thought you had handled? I'd also talk to your doc and maybe get a referral to a therapist. But...try non-medical treatments first. A doc will be oh so happy to give you a pill to make you happy. PLEASE don't do this except as an absolute last resort.

Also want to wave *hi* to a fellow Michigander. I lived in SE Mich. for the first 37 yrs. of my life, most recently in Milford. We sold our house and left in Oct. 2005.

Three things that may or may not help are (1) exercise and (2) concentrating on your breathing and (3) knowing it will probably go away.

Exercise can burn off some of the stuff that can make you feel anxious. Some find that something strenuous to start of the day really hits the spot for staying calm all day.

OSA can make you sensitive to changes in your breathing during the day because of what happens at night. So whenever you start to feel anxious, concentrate on belly-breathing deeply and slowly. That tells your brain that air is not an issue, which it may have assumed was an issue if you unconsciously started breathing shallow when you thought about the upcoming social event. Also, your thinking about your breathing takes your mind off whatever may have affected your breathing in the first place.

Going through periods in life where those kinds of social anxieties occur is very common, I understand. For most it is a phase that goes away on its own. I am not saying to ignore any change in how you feel or what your body does. But know that many, if not most, go through that kind of thing at some point. Let it teach you to be very tolerant of others who may have anxieties they can't quite put their finger on either.

That's my full 2 cents!

jeff

Rooster and JNK are right on target. I know what they are talking about.
I've been through some of the same things. Along with panic attacks.
One day I had a panic attack, where my legs buckled, my heart went into what appeared to me as a "flat line".
I was convinced that I was having a heart attack. When cardiologists checked me out with all the machinery in the emergency room, they couldn't find anything wrong.

One way that I cope is that I have come to the realization that these are just part of the way I'm wired,
and so I've accepted it. That alone is a big step. I've had many more experiences with my anxiety, but too long to elaborate.
So, the best advice is to just accept it, consider it part of who you are, and don't worry about it.
Jay

I would add that if you haven't had your thyroid checked it may be a good time for a physical to rule out these things. I can relate. I know that some AD meds can cause more sweating. In the last couple of years I have had sudden episodes of hot flashes then I feel a sudden panic or fear and profuse sweating and it seems to come from nowhere, sometimes when I am watching T.V.. I try to remain calm and breathe and it usually goes away.

Sorry I don't have an answer for you since I still have a similar problem but atleast get your thyroid levels checked out and blood sugar and all the standard tests they run with a physical.

For a few years I had some serious anxiety issues. I think my anxiety is part of the reason my previous doctor didn't believe me when I said I was constantly tired, he just thought I was a worry wart. I can say that since I started the CPAP that my anxiety has markedly improved. However, I don't know if it's medical or if it's because I finally have a diagnosis and explanation for my health problems.

Definitely check with a therapist. I second SheZAAM's comment about not going immediately for the medications and trying other treatments first. I had a lot of luck with a book on anxiety by Edmund Bourne, you can find his books online if you're interested. I also take a magnesium supplement a day. No idea if it's psychosomatic or not, but if I stop taking it, my anxiety gets worse.

Good luck! And I just want to say I love your icon, it always makes me smile.

Sleep Apnea Increases Risk Of Heart Attack Or Death By 30 Percent

ScienceDaily (May 21, 2007) — The nighttime breathing disorder known as obstructive sleep apnea increases a person's risk of having a heart attack or dying by 30% over a period of four to five years, according to a new study.

The more severe the sleep apnea at the beginning of the study, the greater the risk of developing heart disease or dying, the study found.

"While previous studies have shown an association between sleep apnea and heart disease, ours is a large study that allowed us to not only follow patients for five years and look at the association between sleep apnea and the combined outcome of heart attack and death, but also adjust for other traditional risk factors for heart disease," says researcher Neomi Shah, M.D., of Yale University.

"We recommend that patients who experience symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea--excessive daytime sleepiness, or snoring along with breathing pauses--consult their physician," Dr. Shah says. "There is some evidence to make us believe that when sleep apnea is appropriately treated, the risk of heart disease can be lowered."

In obstructive sleep apnea, the upper airway narrows, or collapses, during sleep. Periods of apnea end with a brief partial arousal that may disrupt sleep hundreds of times a night. Obesity is a major risk factor for sleep apnea.

The most effective treatment for sleep apnea is a technique called nasal CPAP, for continuous positive airway pressure, which delivers air through a mask while the patient sleeps, keeping the airway open. It has proved successful in many cases in providing a good night's sleep, preventing daytime accidents due to sleepiness and improving quality of life.

The study included 1,123 patients referred for sleep apnea evaluation. They underwent an overnight sleep study to determine if they had sleep apnea. Over the next four to five years, they were followed to see how many had any heart disease events (heart attack, coronary angiography or bypass surgery) or died.

Sleep apnea triggers the body's "fight or flight" mechanism, which decreases the amount of blood pumped to the heart. Repeated episodes every night for a few years can starve the heart of enough oxygen when it is combined with the body's decreased oxygen intake due to the frequent breathing stoppages during the night, Dr. Shah says.

This research was presented at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference, on Monday, May 21."Obstructive Sleep Apnea is Associated with an Increased Risk of Coronary Artery Disease and Death" (Session B12; Abstract # 1090)

Some of my thoughts on anxiety are evidenced in this article.Perhaps anxiousness is hardwired into our waking hours psyche and manifested at random times,due to repeated exposure to fight or flight during sleep...

SheZAAM! wrote: We sold our house and left in Oct. 2005.

You got out just in time

jnk wrote:........

Exercise can burn off some of the stuff that can make you feel anxious. Some find that something strenuous to start of the day really hits the spot for staying calm all day.

.......

Ditto.

Sometimes the exercise is burning off (oxidizing) the excess adrenalin that was pumped into your system during the night when you were having apneas. Excess adrenalin does create anxiety.

I suffered from anxiety and depression a few years ago, caused initially by sleep deprivation due to apnea, from before and around the time I started CPAP treatment and continuing for a year or so afterwards. I've a few suggestions based on my experience. I'd never suffered anxiety or depression prior to the start of my sleep disordered breathing problems.

1) Be sure that the CPAP treatment is as effective as it can be. Otherwise sleep fragmentation can perpetuate the anxiety or depressive symptoms and reduce the effectiveness of other treatments for these. For example my own sleep pattern seems to be quite dependent on getting my humidifier setting right and adjusting it to suit winter/summer room temperature. If its not just right I can snore, causing sleep fragmentation. That showed up by chance during a follow-up sleep study, when I had failed to make the expected improvements in daytime symptoms a year after starting treatment.

2) Some anxieties can be self-perpetuating. Once you have experienced anxiety due to a particular cause, fear of the same cause can trigger the anxiety, even when the actual cause is not present. Cognitive behavioural therapy can help with that, it teaches you strategies to cope with the issues.

3) I found profuse sweating of the palms of my hands accompanied anxiety. It gradually improved as the anxiety lessened. In my case I needed medication, CBT, as well as improvements in effective CPAP therapy to reduce the anxiety. My PC mouse and mat used to get saturated when I was at work using it all day, and I'd get anxious about completing routine tasks I'd been doing for many years. Nobe of the treatments on their own enabled me to break out of the cycle, together they were effective.

nobody wrote:

SheZAAM! wrote: We sold our house and left in Oct. 2005.

You got out just in time

Actually we were a little late. It took 11 mos. to sell our house and we sold it for what we paid for it 3 yrs. ago, even after a major kitchen remodel.

Hi Neal, from your New Year posting I thought your problem was in a different area altogether
I too have anxiety, especially if I have decisions to make and paperwork stuff to do,calls to make etc.
I almost hyperventilate sometimes, just can't take the pressure anymore! I guess it's self
induced.
I can resolve all sorts of problems when I am lying in bed not actually faced with doing anything - except supposed to be sleeping, - but by the time I get up I have pretty well forgotten!
Anyway you are certainly not alone. Let's hope we can work through it, or get used to it, whichever. Good luck.