How often is sleep apnea misdignosed?

I wanted to inquiry as to approximately what percentage of cases of sleep apnea are misdiagnosed and what are they commonly mistaken for? Is sleep apnea ever mistaken for things like allergies?

Thank you very much! Sleep well!

From some sleep techs I understand there are a large variety of possible sleep disorders, so one might have apnea, but not your garden variety OSA, or it could be complicated by other factors. I doubt allergies would be mistaken for sleep apnea on a lab sleep test. Allergies might cause some of the smae daytime symptoms as sleep apnea.

pickmeupeveryday wrote:I wanted to inquiry as to approximately what percentage of cases of sleep apnea are misdiagnosed and what are they commonly mistaken for? Is sleep apnea ever mistaken for things like allergies?

Thank you very much! Sleep well!

As in by whom? Doctor, sleep lab?

My first diagnosis for snoring was allergies but that was back in the 80's

Since the symptoms are often vague and doctors are not trained to recognize it ..... yes it is misdiagnosed as allergies, depression, chronic fatigue, lazyness, you pick a diagnosis and it has been used.

About 19 years ago, I suspected I had apnea;
but my HMO managed to give me some kind of 'sleep study', (nothing like the ones I had a year ago),
which gave me a clean bill of health--I am convinced the first study was bogus.
Consequently, I suffered for another 18 years. Thanks, HMO.

pickmeupeveryday wrote:I wanted to inquiry as to approximately what percentage of cases of sleep apnea are misdiagnosed and what are they commonly mistaken for? Is sleep apnea ever mistaken for things like allergies?

Yes. Most commonly, I suspect, people who have both sleep apnea and allergies or other problems will get a correct but incomplete diagnosis of respiratory allergy (or depression, or anxiety, or obesity, or diabetes, or a heart condition, etc). According to Avram Gold, much of the functional somatic disorders (fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, gulf war syndrome, etc) is caused by OSA or UARS. But putting a percentage on it is going to be pretty difficult, because if people aren't diagnosed with sleep apnea, no one will know to count them as misdiagnosed until they figure it out themselves of get the correct diagnosis.