Sleep Apnea and Sleep Clinics

noir_blood

About a months ago, I began to start having trouble taking deep breaths along with severe coughing, usually during the night. Having been in H/A long enough, I ended up going to see a doctor, who ran some tests, and then referred me to a pulmonologist.

Saw him last Friday, and he diagnosed me with Asthma and told me my lungs were slightly underdeveloped. He gave me some medicine and an inhaler, and that has made a world of difference-so far it's cleared up all my issues.

While I was there however, he also said I should visit a sleep clinic, because I might have sleep apnea. Now, here's the thing, I never mentioned to him that I had any issues sleeping, and the symptoms he mention don't really seem to apply to me. It feels like he saw that I was overweight, and based a lot of it on that, as he didn't run any tests or anything like that.

Seeing as my insurance will not fully cover the clinic, leaving me with a 250 payment, I'm trying to decide if I shoudl go. The other thing is that I need to do the sleep clinic in order to have a follow up with the doctor, which maybe it's just my distrust of doctors in general, but doesn't feel right.

I guess my quesiton is that if Sleep Apnea could be something I have and never really noticed. He mentioned being sleepy during the day time, which yeah, I sometimes get, but I usually don't get a full 8 hours of sleep-more like six really. And it's not like I have trouble falling sleep, or anything..

Hahnsoo1

People with sleep apnea don't necessarily have trouble falling asleep. In fact, many of them are incredibly deep sleepers. You stop breathing while in the middle of sleep, and your brain kicks in and has to get you to actively breath again.

How often are you using the inhaler? Is it a preventative or a rescue inhaler? If it's a rescue inhaler and it's "cleared up your issues", it may just be giving you symptomatic relief now for an underlying problem that will give you much more severe problems later.

The sleep clinic experience isn't exactly the most conducive for actually falling asleep either. They stick a bunch of electrodes on your head (which is the equivalent of sticking a bunch of sticky bubble gum bits all over your hair), and they constantly monitor you while you lie there in an unfamiliar (but clean) bed.

Still, if the pulmonologist is referring you to a sleep clinic, you should at least rule out the possibility. Especially if your future visits to the pulmonologist are contingent on going there. Although I don't know of any doctor that won't see a patient because "they didn't do that one thing". You can have a sit down and say "Look, I can't really afford this right now because my insurance doesn't completely cover it", and they will typically understand. Maybe that is the best option for you at this point.

Does anyone sleep near you? A spouse or significant other? Have other people observed you sleeping at all?

noir_blood

Hahnsoo1 wrote:

People with sleep apnea don't necessarily have trouble falling asleep. In fact, many of them are incredibly deep sleepers. You stop breathing while in the middle of sleep, and your brain kicks in and has to get you to actively breath again.

How often are you using the inhaler? Is it a preventative or a rescue inhaler? If it's a rescue inhaler and it's "cleared up your issues", it may just be giving you symptomatic relief now for an underlying problem that will give you much more severe problems later.

The sleep clinic experience isn't exactly the most conducive for actually falling asleep either. They stick a bunch of electrodes on your head (which is the equivalent of sticking a bunch of sticky bubble gum bits all over your hair, and they constantly monitor you while you lie there in an unfamiliar (but clean) bed.

Still, if the pulmonologist is referring you to a sleep clinic, you should at least rule out the possibility. Especially if your future visits to the pulmonologist are contingent on going there. Although I don't know of any doctor that won't see a patient because "they didn't do that one thing". You can have a sit down and say "Look, I can't really afford this right now because my insurance doesn't completely cover it", and they will typically understand. Maybe that is the best option for you at this point.

Does anyone sleep near you? A spouse or significant other? Have other people observed you sleeping at all?

Thanks for the response.

The inhaler is I believe preventative. He told me to take it twice a day.

And yeah, my gf is going to watch me this week when I sleep. Is there something she should be looking for?

JohnnyCache

I had/have sleep apnea (I still "have" it genetically speaking but it went away largely after a radical tonsillectomy and some weight loss)

I can tell the sleep apnea kicked in the night before if I wake up with a splitting goddamn headache from essentially suffocating in my sleep all night.

Also, I snored LOUD before the operation. Like loud enough and deep enough that the buzzing in my own sinuses would wake me up.

Sleep apnea generally sounds like you're choking in your sleep, if you snore and then choke more than a few times a night that's a pretty bad sign.

Aoi Tsuki

My husband has sleep apnea; he was diagnosed shortly after we got together and I said something to the effect of "Jesus break-dancing Christ, your snoring is awful." So, loud snoring is a definite tip-off, but it's not the only thing to watch for. When my husband drifts off on the futon, he'll often snort and cough as his breathing gets wonky. He also complains of a dry mouth from it being open while he sleeps without his CPAP machine.

Ketar

I have to use a CPAP machine for sleep apnea. If you actually have a problem along those lines, there should be some symptoms aside from occasional daytime sleepiness. I was chronically exhausted in the months between developing it and being diagnosed. My memory deteriorated, my speech was off, and I found myself occasionally doing incredibly stupid things that I never do, like driving straight past my exit for work. If I skip more than a night on the CPAP machine I start developing that intense fatigue again.

Granted, not all people will be affected the same way, but I would expect other signs of sleep deprivation if you actually had any sort of problem-level sleep apnea.

DrAllecon

And yeah, my gf is going to watch me this week when I sleep. Is there something she should be looking for?

By definition, people with sleep apnea temporarily stop breathing for brief periods in their sleep. She should look for 1) snoring 2) deep, heavy breathing/gasping that is interrupted by brief periods of silence/not breathing.

Common symptoms are feeling fatigued the next day/loss of energy, headaches, general body aches and a feeling that despite getting a "good" night's sleep that you don't feel rested when you wake up. If you need an A-bomb to get you out of bed in the morning, every morning, even after what you thought was a decent sleep, apnea is a possibiliity.
In more serious cases, your blood pressure can be elevated and you could feel light headed/dizzy (but that's less common).

Incidentally, if you're using your rescue inhaler as often as twice a day, it means your asthma still isn't very well controlled and your pulmonologist should be adjusting your medication accordingly. Using a non-rescue inhaler (part steroid like Symibcort or Advair, etc) is a different story and they are usually twice a day, every day medications.

In your position, I would recommend giving yourself a chance to see how you continue to do on your asthma medication, have your girlfriend watch you sleep a few nights, and see how you feel. If you feel great, the odds of you having apnea aren't too high, and you can do what Hhansoo1 recommended about being up-front with your pulmonologist regarding the expense of the test.

Essee

My dad has sleep apnea (seems to finally have been properly treated, so that's awesome), and as everybody said, I personally knew he used to snore LUDICROUSLY loudly. Then once he met his girlfriend several years ago, she told me she always had to keep waking him up a bit during the night when he stopped breathing and stuff (since he would otherwise wake himself up when he ran out of oxygen anyway). I'm not sure what finally fixed things for him (I don't think he had surgery to fix this, he couldn't sleep with a CPAP no matter how hard he tried, and initially medicine didn't work), but I'm really glad he got it solved. I feel you would probably notice being dead tired if you had it. My dad still has a bit of his "tired all the time" feeling, but I imagine it was probably far worse before.
If your doctor just gave you Advair (or Symbicort, haven't heard of it) then that should really solve the problem if you don't have sleep apnea. Advair made a world of difference to me, even though I've never had an asthma attack in my life, to my knowledge. My problem wasn't just while sleeping, but I really noticed a big difference right away in how I was breathing after starting it.

BradicusMaximus

Not to steal op's thread but I sometimes skip breathing for a few seconds while sleeping but never really thought much of it. This doesn't happen very often but is it something that can get worse as time goes on?

jefe414

Regarding the sleep clinic, are there any universities nearby? I live near Yale and they offer free sleep.. tests or whatever you want to call it (where they monitor you overnight).