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After seeing my personal test results and reading the posts under Our Wisdom along with other postings on this forum I most definitely agree that untreated sleep apnea kills.

Since no one else mentioned it.. it kills indirectly when you fall asleep at the wheel of a car.

Sleep Apena can definitely kill you both directly and indirectly as stated here by others.

I personally know of four individuals who were killed directly by sleep apnea.

1) My Aunt died of suffocation during her sleep. She was never diagnosed as having sleep apnea, but all of her siblings have been diagnosed with it since the time of her death, she most likely had it too. She was in her fifties when she passed away.

2) My neighbor had been diagnosed with sleep apnea, but had a hard time using his CPAP for the entire night ... often opting to sleep some nights without it. The morning following one of the nights he opted not to use it, he was found dead in the morning by his family ... cause of death, suffocation. He was in his forties when he passed away.

3) A young patient of the dentist I go to was diagnosed with "mild" sleep apnea. She had some dental work done a few months ago and as a result opted not to use her CPAP for a few nights because of it ... she failed to show up for her follow up appointment, and also for work (she worked in the same complex where the dental office was located) ... upon investigation, her family found her dead in her bed, she lived alone ... cause of death ... suffocation ... she was in her thirties ...

4) I worked with a woman who told me a very sad story about her son who was seventeen and living with her at the time. She told me he was the worst snorer she had ever heard in her life. One morning she was getting ready for work, when she realized her son had not left for school yet. She found him dead in bed. Needless to say the entire family was in complete shock from the incident ... the official cause cause of death was that he had "choked to death" ... this happened back in the late 70's, but at the time when she told me her story (20 years later) she felt certain that it was probably due to sleep apnea ...

so yes ... sleep apnea definitely can and does kill ...

For those saying that sleep apnea won't kill you, breathing asbestos won't kill you either..

.. but the cancer it causes sure will.

About 12 years ago, my husband's seventies-something uncle laid down for a nap in their sun room on a beautiful September afternoon. He never woke up. His CPAP was in the bedroom next his side of the bed. It wasn't until my own diagnosis that I began to realize what had probably happened.