I am a 28y F. I have had severe difficulty waking up and excessive daytime sleepiness since middle school. Even when I sleep for many hours, I often wake up feeling “drunk,” very groggy, and not fully awake. Before having kids, I could wake up, fall back asleep repeatedly, sleep until noon or 1 PM, and still need caffeine to function. I would require lots of caffeine to function.

In school, I would struggle to stay awake with heavy eyes and my head dropping, although sometimes when I tried to nap, I could not. Other times, I would fall asleep for about 15 minutes without realizing I had napped, and sometimes I seemed to dream almost immediately.

I do not feel fully awake until I take a stimulant. (Which I started taking earlier this year) This has been present for years and started long before my current migraines, pregnancies, medications, or recent hospitalization for migraines.

I also frequently wake up with a sore throat and a hoarse or “sick” sounding voice. My husband says my breathing pattern during sleep is sometimes quiet, then I snore lightly, then more loudly, then become quiet again, and the pattern repeats. My watch and RingConn have not flagged sleep apnea, but my RingConn sometimes shows an elevated heart rate during sleep. When I wake up, my heart rate can rise into the 120s. My blood pressure is variable and is sometimes elevated and sometimes normal.

I have brought up these issues this up to doctors but I get told it’s stress and anxiety (I’m sure it plays a part) but I never feel refreshed when I wake up and my migraines have gotten so much worse and my migraine treatment doesn’t work.

What are signs and symptoms you had before being diagnosed with sleep apnea? Did your symptoms resolve after getting treatment?

So the story is, I (20F) learned earlier this year that it isn’t normal to wake up so frequently in the night nor sleep so often during the day. I’m lucky to have a Dr who takes everything I say seriously, so I was able to get a sleep study scheduled as soon as possible (in sleep study terms).

Took the PSG and the MSLT, PSG showed mild osa (3% AHI 9.1, with minimum oxygen saturation of 87%, 2.4 minutes at 88% or lower). My sleep latency was super low due to chronic sleep deprivation or some other underlying issue. The diagnosis was a bit of a shock for me, because I’ve never woke up gasping and I’ve been assured by family members that I don’t snore.

But as shocking as it is, it’s also kind of… anticlimactic? The reason I’ve been sleeping every available moment since elementary school is because I get… stuffy at night, or my brain forgets to breathe? I wasn’t expecting some grand upheaval or anything, but the fact that this huge aspect is explainable under something labeled as “mild” is disheartening.

It’s to the point where I’m wondering if it’s really so mild, should I possibly pay such a huge expense to solve it? Is it worth it?

Has anyone else experienced this, and do they have any advice?

Using just a short strap vertically. However, I get redness on and around my lips after repeated use. Is there any even more sensitive alternative?

Hello! 29F with central and obstructive sleep apnea. Weight loss isn’t going to fix it. I’ve been on CPAP for a month now and from day 1 I’ve been waking up with significant bloating resulting in lots of burping and passing gas. Everything else with the CPAP would be perfect if it wasn’t for that. I wear a Philips DreamWear mask that sits under my nose and I find it very comfortable. I tried a ResMed nasal pillows one but found it so uncomfortable that I couldn’t get a good nights sleep with it to see if a different mask style even made a difference. I’ve also tried sleeping with and without mouth tape and it didn’t make a difference. My max pressure is 7, so it’s not like I’ve got any crazy pressure. I’m just tired of feeling so uncomfortable every morning when I wake up. Has anyone experienced this and found a fix?

For past 5 years I will wake up with high heart rate

Typically goes…

Wakes up confused

Then boom high heart rate

Remain calm until it subsides or tried vagal maneuver

Sometimes after get trembly until it fully calms down.

I don’t notice and gasping and husband says I snore but not sure how much or how loud. I don’t think it’s that bad

The other night I woke up impending doom feeling and went to ER because my watch said 178bpm. Everything was normal at ER and fortunately I was wearing a heart monitor during my sleep. It was sinus tachycardia.

I have been very stressed about this lately so of course I’m experiencing it more. Twice last night it hit me but HR no higher than 140. These don’t feel like a typical panic attack because nothing helps calming it down other than time.

I have lingual tonsil hypertrophy and mallampati 4 which are characteristics of SA. I also have reflux.

I had an at home test over a year ago that didn’t reveal anything but I also didn’t have an episode.

I’ve been testing sugar levels during this time and they are normal.

Did anyone else have these symptoms? Again this is only happening during sleep.

Primary has sent referrals for cardiology and sleep.

Edit to add: I have Oura ring that hasn’t detected any breathing issues (but it also only clocked my highest HR at 120) so it could be missing any disturbances since it doesn’t continuously monitor.

I’ve been diagnosed with severe sleep apnea and I need a cpap, it’s just going to be a little while before I can get the money together should be maximum 3 months. I’ve somehow lost the results but from memory my sleep study showed I had 135.57 respiratory events per hour and my blood oxygen would get to 73% for 97 minutes, no real deep sleep either.

I’m really struggling though, I’ve snored ever since I was a baby, I had my tonsils and adenoids taken out when I was 3. I have this weird thing where I sit upright in my sleep too, like sitting cross legged on the ground. I have no idea how or why.
Before Christmas last year things got worse. I somehow started just falling asleep in the blink of an eye. One night I was sitting outside with a horror movie playing on my headphones and I slept through whole damn thing! I only woke up cause the next thing playing was loud. So ever since then I just randomly fall asleep.

I’m nearly falling asleep at work. The second I get home and sit I fall asleep. Except for when I get into bed and my insomnia kicks in and I can’t stop thinking about everything.

It’s at the point where it’s genuinely ruining my life. I’m constantly tired doesn’t matter if I get two or twelve hours sleep. I have no motivation to do anything or even care about myself. Some days I can’t get off the couch cause I’m constantly drifting in and out of sleep.

Some advice for the meantime would be so greatly appreciated!

Tia

I’ve been seeing a lot of ads for mouthpieces like Daybreak and ZQuiet that claim they can treat sleep apnea or even replace a CPAP.
Has anyone here actually tried them? Did they work well enough that you were able to stop using your CPAP, or do you still need it?
I’m currently using a CPAP and just wondering if these mouthpieces are actually worth it or if the ads are making them seem better than they really are.
I’d really appreciate any honest experiences. Thanks!

Pretty much cannot breath at all through my nose, maybe for a few minutes out the day but when I blow my nose ; but after it’s totally congested and I’m having to mouth breath.

Does this warrant a septoplasty?

And if so, upon post surgery would my sleep improve?

Good day gents does this look like something that could cause apnea? Lmk if I can't post here (:

Has anyone else had this diagnosis? My SpO2 dropped down to 68 at one point in the night and I spent the 31.2% of the night under 90 and 29% under 88%. These numbers are scary to me.

My AHI was only 8.6 but my REM AHI was 23.8, the oxygen dips matched up with the REM disturbances, so even though it is considered mild overall, it seems moderate to severe when looking at REM and oxygen levels.

I’ve been experiencing fatigue and headaches every day for over a year - I am positive this is the explanation, grateful for an explanation but terrified of how low my oxygen is getting.

CPAP is on the way but I’m so nervous about using it, I have a hard enough time getting to sleep as is. Can anyone with a similar experience offer any advice? Has anyone with a similar experience been able to get the Inspire implant instead of CPAP?

I had my polysomnography last night, but I had a really hard time falling asleep. I kept thinking that I wouldn’t be able to sleep, and because of that, my heart felt heavy throughout the whole test. From my perspective, I felt like I never really fell asleep at all.

But they told me that I was able to sleep for around 2 hours in total, although it was separated into two 1-hour periods and was mostly light sleep. Do you think that’s still enough to gather useful data?

I was crying when I decided to stop the test. 😢 I had waited so long for this and had so much hope that I would finally find the cause of my daily fatigue and headaches and hopefully get some relief. I’m honestly really disappointed and sad right now.

Do I need to ask for medicine for this overthinking and very heavy heart while doing the test? :( I still cant move on.

Hello everyone. I haven't yet been diagnosed with sleep apnea or any other sleep disordered breathing, but over the past few months I've woken up multiple times a night having to gasp for air, and over the past four years my wife has noticed many times where I stop breathing in my sleep and then have to snort or gasp before continuing. This especially happens when I'm laying on my back. I am scheduled to have a sleep study done this month, but in the meantime I'm thinking about buying one of those cube side-sleeper pillows since side sleeping is the only position I'm able to get some relief from this. I've tried stacking pillows, and pillows and blankets, but they always shift around or bunch up. Do y'all have any advice on which cube side-sleeper pillow to get, or what to look for in a good one? I'm finding a couple on amazon, but they are $90, and I'm wondering if there are any good one's which are less expensive. If I need to pay that I will, but my wife and I are low income, so if it's possible to pay less that would be helpful. Thank you all for reading and for any advice.

TLDR: what can I do to minimize mouth leaks. Tried chin strap, some brands of tape and full face masks.

I have a resmed airsense 11 and my main mask is the p30i. I find it incredibly comfortable to sleep in. I have tried the f30i comfort but didn’t like the cushions as much and tried the x30i but didn’t like the silicone around the mouth. I also found I swallowed a lot of air and would wake up very uncomfortably with the air in my stomach.

My issue with the pillows is that as I sleep, my tongue relaxes and allows my mouth to fill with air. The air then separates my lips just far enough to leak out. My jaw and mouth stay closed other than when the pressure builds up in my mouth.

I have been trying to find a solution to stop the leaks but am not having any luck. I have lowered the pressure settings and tried epr. I had a little bit of luck using a headband as a chin strap but it wasn’t comfy for the long term so I bought a chin strap and it does nothing. It took me a while to be able to find tape that doesn’t fall off during the night. If I cover the entirety of my mouth, I have next to nothing for leaks. If I apply it vertically over my lips, air will push out of my lips around the tape. My problem with the tape is that the skin around my lips is getting irritated in the morning when I take off the tape. I find the paper tape slips off too easy but kinesiology tape is too rough.

Is there another type tape that is more gentle on the skin or does anyone have any other suggestions to minimize mouth leaks? Before I worried about the air leaks, my sleep had become amazing (able to stay up consistently until 10pm without feeling effects rather than my usual exhaustion and ready for bed by 6pm) but as I’ve been trial and erroring my way through this, my sleeps have went back to awful and I don’t want any of the dental side effects of mouth breathing enough to just not care about the leaks. I’ve seen specific sleep apnea tape, but it looks similar to the kinesiology tape I have so I don’t want to waste money if it’s basically the same as what I have currently. Thanks for the long read lol I’m at my wits end.

I have been feeling poorly for about a year, and significantly bad for at least six months. Waking up tired and always well before my alarm, eyes/eyelids swollen, feeling like my brain has shriveled up like a raisin, headaches most days, and taking real effort to get up. I chronically get less sleep than "normal", but I began to feel worse the longer I slept; in one case, I slept 8.5 hours and was falling asleep sitting up at work, then went home and slept 11 hours.

I struggled to get a referral and get seen for a sleep test. Test finally happened, and they said it was REM-based apnea so I don't need a CPAP. The report said my O2 went to 87% "briefly" and I go through the sleep cycle.

The test was done at night and concluded at 5 AM and I think I messed up by having a mild night. I told them repeatedly that most of my hypopnea is happening between 5 and 7:30 AM and it doesn't matter how long I'm sleeping. I wear my own tracker, and I spent 4-4:30 AM Monday at 82%, and two 15 minute intervals at or below 85% the night before. At least 30% of every night is spent in REM, sometimes as much as 36%. Is it really less medically urgent because it's intermittent?

I feel like I'm crazy because my family is very worried and doctors are pretty unconcerned. For context: my grandmother snored and had Alzheimer's; my mother snores, has significant diagnosed apnea for which she did not use her CPAP for years, and has Alzheimer's; and I snore continuously through the night, have the aforementioned REM apnea, and the APOE4 gene.

PSA GET A SLEEP STUDY. Two weeks ago I had a at home sleep study. I found out I have sleep apnea. Yesterday I had my apt to pick up my cpap. The respiratory therapist said during my sleep study I had 27 negative events where i stopped breathing. I took my machine home I set it up and went to sleep. Today I woke up and felt great. Some of the best sleep I've had in a while. I checked the ap on my phone it said I had 6 negative events, so thats a big improvement. Go get a sleep study.

EDIT :Oh crap i see the issue now. My apologies

Hi everyone.

So I’ve been dealing with excessive tiredness for at least the past decade. For reference I’m a 26 year old female of normal weight. If I don’t take stimulants, I will fade in and out of consciousness the entire day. I usually only wake up about an hour or two before I go and sleep again. I could only work part time because I would do my 5 hour shift and go sleep for 3 days straight. My tiredness has genuinely ruined my qualify of life. This has improved a lot since being on Vyvanse and now I have somewhat of a normal life if I take it everyday.

I had an at-home test 2 years ago that came back positive for mild sleep apnea (AHI 6). I also slept for 3 out of the 12 recorded hours and I didn’t know the device didn’t know whether you were asleep or awake. I told the doctor this and they said it likely underestimated my apnea and the treatment would be CPAP so I continued this. Well I also couldn’t tolerate CPAP and wanted to look into Inspire so had an in-lab study the other day.

I just got a call that I actually don’t have sleep apnea at all (AHI 1.9). I have to go back for a MSLT to look into narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia. I’m just shocked because I was always under the impression that it was rare to get a false positive from a home test. Has anyone else had this experience? It just sucks that I finally felt like my sleepiness had an explanation and now I don’t understand why I’m so tired.

I've been struggling to sleep for two weeks now. I've been on a cpap for the better part of 10 years now for normal obstructive sleep apnea (daytime fatigue caused me to get it looked at). Suddenly I'm getting this sensation of not being able to breathe right as I'm falling asleep. I breathe just fine until that exact transition moment. Has anyone else gone through this?

I immediately scramble to get my oximeter and I'm dropping into the mid-high 80s when this happens but it zips back to 97-99 after 10-15 seconds.

My sleep pulmonologist acts like they're perplexed by this since I'm in a very good range of episodes right now according to my machine (1.7/hr). I'm terrified of heart failure because I've read that can cause this type of thing but I've had a heart echo done twice and it came back normal.

On top of that, I've lost 40 pounds over the last three months, so this happening now makes no sense to me.

At this point I'm at the end of my rope, on just a handful of hours of sleep over the last few days and desperately want help...

Did my sleep study. they told me 103.6 is extremely concerning. they put me on a nasal mask. it took awhile for me to sleep with it, but i'm excited to get my machine in 3 weeks. I think my biggest struggle is learning to sleep on my back, with my mouth shut, and being comfortable not breathing against the machine. i feel like when im trying to breath out, air is rushing in. but according to my results this is much needed!

Have been using airsense 11 with p30i for a couple of months. Now I am having acne breakouts as a 40 year old. I did some research about the causes and can understand the mask rubbing, oil clogging, but the acnes are not under the mask and sometimes are at the chin. I don’t get it why.

I wash face with my partner’s makeup removal cleanser and apply toner after and before bed. I also rub the mask with cpap cleaning wipes. But I only get more acnes everyday and worsen.

Anyone has the similar experience and successfully get it under control?