Sleep Apnea Can Have Deadly Consequences | Hacker News Reader

Sleep Apnea Can Have Deadly Consequences

nytimes.com

38 pointspseudolus9 comments

My father has a very severe form of obstructive sleep apnea, resulting in really loud snoring. In my home country, snoring generally isn't seen as a symptom for a deeper problem, and is just accepted as an annoyance, sometimes even associated with sound sleep.

During a recent visit, I was sitting next to his bed as he fell asleep, and I could literally see him choking for 4 out of 5 attempts at breathing. When I asked about his sleep quality, he said he tends to nod off when he has not much to pay attention to, and sometimes also while riding his scooter (!). We arranged for a sleep study, and there it was, pretty clear. Since then, he's been using a CPAP[1] machine when sleeping, and his life hasn't been better. He reports much less fatigue, better digestion, and an overall positive feeling.

If you have a family member who snores loudly, please pay attention.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_positive_airway_p...

I can't emphasize what you're saying enough. Please watch your loved ones and take snoring seriously. If a girlfriend of mine hadn't spoken up and helped me, I'd likely be dead by now. Family members and friends saw it as more of an annoyance or something funny. She saw that I was choking.

Also, you don't have to be overweight to have it, it can affect anyone.

If you lack a significant other I recommend a sleep recorder app on your phone, of which there are several. keep the phone near you when you sleep, hit record, and it'll record your sleep noises.

(I'm also not overweight at all, yet have sleep apnea. Finding out I have sleep apnea and working on it changed my life.)

I have heard that APAP is better than CPAP.

I have a modern CPAP machine that can do both. At first I found it quite hard to stay asleep with my initial prescription. Altering the machine to use APAP mode with a lower max pressure fixed things right up (with the doctor's approval of course).

APAP, for readers who are blissfully able to sleep without issue, automatically alters pressure depending on whether you're breathing in or out, so you aren't breathing against high pressure. It's a lot more comfortable.

CPAP machines are quite interesting from a computing perspective. They record a ton of data that can be visualised with an open source tool, and they use a lot of predictive algorithms to figure out how you breath and when to increase/decrease the pressure.

Yes, indeed we have APAP, but they might be significantly costlier than CPAP. But CPAP is already a lifesaver. Our doctor was totally cool with CPAP, and suggested APAP if we could afford it solely because of its added comfort.

I’m not overweight and I have sleep apnea. My case is considered mild, but when I have an apnea event I am jolted awake gasping for air. It is terrifying.

I had heard some doctors years ago wouldn’t bother treating mild sleep apnea, but I think that attitude has changed.

I have the same thing and this more likely a laryngospasm caused by GERD. By now I got used to it and after the incident I calmly go to sleep but every time it is happening I wake up terrified and in panic. Again this is caused by acid reflux and can be prevented by not eating before going to sleep, sleeping at an angle exercises to strenghten the upper stomach sphincter. Sleep apnea doesn’t fully wake you up and silently killing your brain cells by depriving them of oxigen.

The article is very specifically talking about obstructive sleep apnea, which is caused by a physical obstruction of the airway. It has the hallmark symptom of snoring, as that's the body's attempt to force air past the obstruction.

There is another form of sleep apnea it doesn't mention at all called central sleep apnea, which is caused by your central nervous system just deciding not to breath. Either on inhale or exhale, it just stops the breathing process as abruptly as hitting a breakpoint in code, before starting right back up after a compiling break[1] like nothing happened. There's no obstruction, no (or little) snoring, and no breathing. Other than the periodic absence of chest compressions and a potential irregular breathing pattern (as your body tries to adjust O2 levels back to normal), there isn't really any external signs that it's occurring.

Their long term symptoms[2] are roughly the same, since they both result in chronic blood oxygen deprivation. But they present in polar opposite ways. And it's far less obvious for a partner to pick up on central apnea, since abstaining from breathing for 15-45 seconds is slightly more subtle than loud bursts of snoring.

[1] https://xkcd.com/303/

[2] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/central-sleep...

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