YOUR story how old when you first noticed sleeping problems?

Hi there!

I was just wondering when you noticed you first had trouble with your sleep?

Like not being able to get up in the morning, or having trouble sleeping at night, reports of unusual snoring,
or the dreaded day time sleepiness problems many folks have.


I think I was about thirteen when I realized, I just couldnt handle mornings anymore. One particular morning I decided when I grew up, that I would
NEVER, EVER, IN A MILLION YEARS.. have a job where I had to be there in the morning..

I knew I had to get thru school, I counted how many years that was including college, and then FREEDOM!

So, I never had a job I had to be there in the morning.. yahoo... I worked afternoons and evenings.
The mornings, I could be as miserable as I wanted to be!

How old where you when you thought things werent "quite right" with your sleeping situation?

Are you doing an article on us?

I'd been told I snored for years but didn't believe it, and functioned fairly normally. In my early 30's I had a pretty rough prolonged health situation that affected my sleep, and it never quite normalized again, although it was 15 years before I was formally diagnosed with PLMD, and a few years later, OSA.

Hi my name is Duane and I am a HOSE-HEAD


I was in denial for many years honestly, My wife would tell me I snore like a train would sound in the room and would always try to beat me to sleep. She would also tell me I would choke and stop breathing in my sleep all of which I told her she was fibbing and that she should hear her self and not worry about me. In retrospect I wish I would have listened to her years ago. I have felt like a zombie for a long while now and would not be able to remember what I did the day before half the time with out sitting and retracing all my steps for the day. It was when I went to my ENT for dizziness issues in which I was diagnosed with menuers disease that the Doc said you need to go in for a sleep study. There was no if ands or buts about it he insisted and I finally took into consideration what my wife had told me all these years and his concern and went in for the study.

IM GLAD I DID.

My O2 Stats where dropping to the 70s and a few times I hit the Hi 60s I had only 2 Obstructive events but over 100 of Hypos and Centrals as well as very little time in REM or DEEP sleep. I was a wreak according to the two sleep doctors that were on site and then the other consult they did with one of the Big Wigs in Salt Lake City.

I didn't want to hear it when I was being told about it all but I have embraced it and am happy to say that after a week of being on my CPAP I feel so much better and that makes it much easier to put the mask on each night. I have told so many people about it including my wife that I feel may benefit from getting checked out. When I had talked about it with one of my coworkers she had told me that she also had an appointment for a sleep study and sure enough she is now in the hose-head clique LOL so we share storys each morning and I am happy to report that she is doing great as well. Its nice to have someone to talk to about it all thats for sure.

Well thats my lil story about my journey to joining the Hose-Heads.

Are you doing an article on us?

uh, no, not unless its a bedtime story I tell the grandkids!

Actually, there are some great stories here!

very interesting, thanks for sharing!

keep em coming!



p.s. sleepingugly.... I love your avatar

elena88 wrote:Hi there!

I was just wondering when you noticed you first had trouble with your sleep?
So, I never had a job I had to be there in the morning.. yahoo... I worked afternoons and evenings.
The mornings, I could be as miserable as I wanted to be!

How old where you when you thought things werent "quite right" with your sleeping situation?

I think I snored since my teenage years, although no one really told me.

I DO know that all my life I've woken up choking, with a dry mouth or sore throat. I put these down to allergies or breathing through my mouth.

It was only when I was told that I actually STOP breathing during my sleep, and that I kept my bed buddies awake, that I admitted that I snored... never thinking that was related to sleep problems.

It was only a year ago when I complained to my primary doctor that I felt no libido, had a hard time focusing, was overweight and had high blood pressure, that he asked me the classic questions: do you snore, can you fall asleep within an hour of waking, do you fall asleep watching TV, do you fall asleep driving, have difficulty getting through a movie, concert, sermon, etc.

I was prescribed a sleep study which I reluctantly succumbed to months after being sent there, and had to have two studies as the first one had mechanical problems, but was finally dx with severe OSA, 38 AHI.

So I guess I had all the symptoms, but no one put two and two together.

Now I'm a proud hose head

Gracey

11 or 12 was certainly a major change for the worse for morning functioning and disposition. Mostly woke up feeling as though the night sped by in one or 2 seconds.....as I felt as rested as if I'd only slept a second or two.

I had insomnia (early wakening) going back to ago 8 at least.

By high school I was quite skilled at avoiding sleep....looking back withy what I know now, I was attempting to avoid the oxygen deprived lack of functioning an awakening. Although I didn't realize fully that was what I was doing.....

Took until age 47 (2008) to get tested/diagnosed/treated......although attempted getting sleep/fatigue issues addressed in late 1980s........doc shrugged his shoulders, but didn't bother to order sleep study....I guess as I was young/fit/female......

J

I know I snore since I was maybe 36. I couldn't believe I was really snoring loud, I thought it was a joke

Then at age 40 I started to feel tired each morning at wake up but never falling asleep in the middle of the day. I have been all my life very difficult to sleep on day time. I needed at least 8 hours of sleep each night and if I sleep more I woke up with a big headache in the forehead as if somebody hit me with a 2X4.

Then at age 42 or something like that I started having problems with high blood pressure, border line as the Dr told. At the same time I told this Dr I was feeling tired in the morning, he answered I was maybe a little in depression he offered to prescribe antidepressants to me, a sleep study takes a waiting of 6 moths; he said. I answered I was not in depression at all and finally I didn't have antidepressants nor the referral for the sleep clinic. He is no more my Dr.!

Then, 8 years after that I was formally diagnosed with an AHI = 30 and I started having real serious problems with my memory, concentration, balance, energy; I was a mess for the next 5 months after starting cpap in December. I have high blood pressure and been on medications since 42.

I was sent to a sleep Dr by my ENT because in an appointment for my vocal cords I thought it would be a good opportunity to make him check why I was snoring as loud as every one told I was doing. It seems I was snoring extremely loud that I could be heard througth the door and until the first floor

I have the impression if my former Dr had send me to the sleep lab when I mentioned my problem, I wouldn't probably had high blood pressure today and who knows what else was damaged with all those years of oxygen deprivation.

Hi All
Last summer I was out camping with my daughter and granddaughter & we had one of those midnight downpours. The girls were sleeping in their tent when it started to collapse, & they jumped into my motorhome & settled down to get back to sleep. They lasted about an hour and left, they said I snored like a freight train and started to gasp............they claimed I was worse than the rain storm. We were discussing the event next morning with friends
(one is on CPAP) and he told me to get myself into the doctors asap and get tested. Low and behold ..sure enough.. I now have CPAP too. When I stop and think about it, I've had it for a long time, everything fits, I'm not a morning person, I was tired, cranky...the whole nine yards. When you don't have a sleeping partner to tell how you sleep, its difficult to grasp. Well, today is alot different, I'm a better person and can do so much more................also, my granddaughter says I'm no longer "cranky" ...Surely not me, I was never cranky
Cheers...Nan

I guess it depends on how you define "sleeping problems".

As a kid I had major issues with falling asleep and then nightmares when I did fall asleep. I was the only kid in my forth grade who had seen every episode of Benny Hill (which came on at 10:30pm). I stopped having those issues on a regular basis about the time I was 17 or so. Still have them occasionally but pretty rare these days.

Snoring has always been an issue in my family. Heck, even the dog snored when I was a kid.

Apnea-specific, I never knew I had a problem until I got married. Sure I was tired but since I had the sleep issues well into my teens with the nightmares and stuff being tired was "normal" for me. One day shortly after I got married my wife said to me "do you know you stop breathing a couple of times every night?". I mentioned it to my doctor at my next physical and he had a sleep study scheduled for me before I left the office. "A couple of times every night", pfff, my AHI was 60 when side sleeping and over 90 when on my back at the original study.

As I read all these stories, it really hits home, that most everyone has had something "going on" for such a long, long time,
and did not know what it was, or mistook it for something else, or the doctor mistook it for something else.

I can only hope that as OSA gets more media attention, and perhaps the doctors and dentists will be taught how to look for it, so
that many others will be helped way before things run into the downhill slide..

Some of us have been saved through sheer dumb luck.

Some of us have classic symptoms, and some do not. However it appears most everyone has had a very difficult time getting diagnosed.

I didn't know I had a sleeping problem until halfway through the split night sleep study, when the sleep tech came to wake me up and fit me with a mask.

Since then, I've come to suspect that I've probably had sleeping problems since I was a kid.

The Dreamer

I'm overweight and have been since about age seven or eight. Prior to that I was rail-thin. As a kid and early teen, I remember dreams of suffocation and the occasional sleep paralysis episode (terrifying!). When I would play in the backyard, I would get this feeling of "someone watching me" and run into the house. Now, I know kids have active imaginations, but I really think it was the stress hormones in my body back then. I've always had some level of anxiety and my blood pressure had always been borderline as a child.

I didn't request a sleep study until I started waking up with my heart pounding, thinking I was dying of a heart attack. That was about 2-3 years ago. I'm 37 now, diagnosed in Feb. 2009. Prior to that I only had weight gain, some fatigue, and my blood pressure finally going through the roof.

Being one of four girls who shared one room, my sisters let me know I snored back when I was a teenager. I've always had nightmare after nightmare, waking up over and over again, being exhaused no matter how much sleep I got, etc... for as long as I can remember.

Over the years, doctors advised me to cut out caffeine or diet or get more hours of sleep. It wasn't until 2007 that my doctor finally suggested I go for a sleep study. I was diagnosed 'mild' then but told I had to re-do the study because the results were inconclusive. I put it off until April 22, 2010, when I went for my second sleep study. I am now diagnosed as "severe". I started cpap therapy on May 12th.

I've never slept well, actually. Even when I was a little kid I was plagued with serious nightmares that would wake me up, then recur when I went back to sleep. I developed depression when I was about 13, but it wasn't diagnosed until I was 22. The high blood pressure started when I was 30 or so, then by age 35 people who were in the house when I slept commented about the Olympic-caliber snoring emanating from my room. When I was 49 my sister, who also has apnea and is a nurse, told me I had all the symptoms and should get tested right away. Waited 4 years to take her advice, but I'm better now, thanks. The odd thing is that all the various doctors through the years never put all this together. The doc I have now only discussed it with my after I brought it up...it makes sense that nobody realized it when I was a kid because I'm an old woman, CPAP therapy was in it's infancy, and dinosaurs were still roaming the earth. But none of them in the last decade or so could connect the dots. Thankfully my sister kept at me; she also directed me to cpap.com. She's a clever, clever girl!