1. < Sleep Health

Can central sleep apnea cause daytime breathlessness?

Posted by lookingforanswers2022 @lookingforanswers2022, Mar 24 2:56pm

My cardiologist recommended an at-home sleep study device that the clinic will mail to me, I will wear it for a night as it records whatever it records (mostly oxygen and heart rate I think), and send it back.

We are doing other tests for heart health but they are scheduled later.
While I wait I wanted to know if my symptoms match other people's experience of central/nonobstructive sleep apnea. Severe fatigue that has gotten progressively worse over the past 15 or so years, though some days are better than others. I slept in today (9 hrs) hoping that I would feel more energetic today but instead I feel more tired and unusually short of breath even doing simple things like laundry and dishes. I try not to overdo it because of the fatigue but I do light to moderate exercise regularly. I feel like my chest is tired, like the tiredness is in my chest. It's hard to explain. Sometimes a lot of rest helps, sometimes it doesn't. I took a nap the other day which is very unusual for me, but it actually made me feel a little bit better. I did not get enough sleep the night before.

I feel short of breath, dizzy, nauseous and extremely fatigued when I exercise too hard (hence the heart test coming up next month). But the unusual breathlessness doing every day things really makes me anxious and happens every once in a while. Can that be related to sleep apnea or having more apneic episodes in one night?

I wake up many times a night and have for years, with more awakenings as the morning gets closer, but I don't feel breathless when I wake up, I usually just turn over. For the most part my sleep is consistent. I get around 8-9 hours of sleep a night, go to bed around the same time (1-2am) and wake up around the same time (10am).

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gloaming | @gloaming | May 24 11:30am

Thanks for the update. It's a fine line between finally getting a diagnosis and actually getting the diagnosis. 😀
It's good to have a plan from it, but it means a shift in routine and sometimes in comfort. However, we gotta do what we gotta do!

REPLY
samcal9977zz | @samcal9977zz | May 24 6:30pm
In reply to @lookingforanswers2022 "Update: it turns out I have PLMD, RLS, and upper airway resistance syndrome (not sleep apnea)...." + (show)
@lookingforanswers2022

Update: it turns out I have PLMD, RLS, and upper airway resistance syndrome (not sleep apnea). The restless legs have resolved with iron supplements and I am no longer anemic. I am on Nasonex for the UARS though I can't really tell if it helps yet. If it continues to be an issue my sleep specialist will refer me for ENT. I had a bad reaction to the gabapentin, and a couple of other supplements used to treat the PLMD and am honestly sick to death of taking medications with horrid side effects in general, so my sleep specialist referred me to a micro-current neurofeedback clinic which he has had a lot of success with for patients who respond poorly to traditional treatments. I have had a few sessions so far so I cannot tell how effective it will be overall but so far it has given me more favorable effects with less side effects than anything else I have tried and plan to continue until my symptoms resolve.

Jump to this post

Glad that you have resolved many issues!

It's inspiring to see...

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lookingforanswers2022 | @lookingforanswers2022 | Jul 20 4:53pm

Hi all, this will be my final update on this post.
Iron levels are back to normal, labs look great.
I had an especially aversive and unusual reaction to neurofeedback which my sleep doc referred me to as a last resort for difficult-to-treat people who don't respond to meds or other sleep treatments. The neurofeedback made me more agitated, irritable, angry, and depressed and I began to feel something was very, very wrong after sessions so I stopped. I would never want to discourage anyone from neurofeedback, for the most part people don't have issues like this or the issues they have are resolved with different frequencies or electrode placement, but I have always been difficult to treat anyway so while it was very disappointing I can't say I was surprised. Those feelings of wrongness and agitation and depression eventually went away but on the plus side I now remember at least one dream per night and it has been over a month since my last session. At least I know I'm getting REM!
My legs have gotten increasingly restless and was beginning to feel it during the day and night and my sleep quality and fatigue had gotten worse. Tried belsomra which made me tired but did not help the restlessness.
I saw something online that said low salt can cause restless leg and when I tried saltwater before bed that gave me some relief, but my need for salt kept increasing a little bit every day.
I have been taking omeprazole and famotidine for stomach pain and reflux. I have taken them both in the past for years and have never had this salt/restlessness issue, but it is all very on brand for my weird medication metabolism. I stopped the meds and the restlessness significantly decreased and now I don't need much salt, though I do need some, but my stomach pain, nausea, and reflux have come raging back. I needed to get off them for a GI test anyway and I also happened to take some fiber tablets during that time and the stomach pain became excruciating. It was late at night and there is a history of appendicitis in my family so I went to the ER because I could not find an urgent care that was open. They gave me some pain medication (not morphine though, they offered but I wouldn't have been able to drive myself home) and zofran for the nausea. Labs looked great, CT was all normal. I didn't think the meds they gave me in the ER did much at the time but when I went home and slept it was easily the best sleep I have gotten in months. And I felt great and had energy the next day, even though the pain and nausea came back. Following up with GI specialist for ongoing GI issues.

TLDR acid blocking medications gave me restless legs. Stopped the meds, slept great. Case closed! Thanks for all your comments and support!

REPLY
1 reply
gloaming | @gloaming | Jul 20 10:15pm
In reply to @lookingforanswers2022 "Hi all, this will be my final update on this post. Iron levels are back to..." + (show)
@lookingforanswers2022

Hi all, this will be my final update on this post.
Iron levels are back to normal, labs look great.
I had an especially aversive and unusual reaction to neurofeedback which my sleep doc referred me to as a last resort for difficult-to-treat people who don't respond to meds or other sleep treatments. The neurofeedback made me more agitated, irritable, angry, and depressed and I began to feel something was very, very wrong after sessions so I stopped. I would never want to discourage anyone from neurofeedback, for the most part people don't have issues like this or the issues they have are resolved with different frequencies or electrode placement, but I have always been difficult to treat anyway so while it was very disappointing I can't say I was surprised. Those feelings of wrongness and agitation and depression eventually went away but on the plus side I now remember at least one dream per night and it has been over a month since my last session. At least I know I'm getting REM!
My legs have gotten increasingly restless and was beginning to feel it during the day and night and my sleep quality and fatigue had gotten worse. Tried belsomra which made me tired but did not help the restlessness.
I saw something online that said low salt can cause restless leg and when I tried saltwater before bed that gave me some relief, but my need for salt kept increasing a little bit every day.
I have been taking omeprazole and famotidine for stomach pain and reflux. I have taken them both in the past for years and have never had this salt/restlessness issue, but it is all very on brand for my weird medication metabolism. I stopped the meds and the restlessness significantly decreased and now I don't need much salt, though I do need some, but my stomach pain, nausea, and reflux have come raging back. I needed to get off them for a GI test anyway and I also happened to take some fiber tablets during that time and the stomach pain became excruciating. It was late at night and there is a history of appendicitis in my family so I went to the ER because I could not find an urgent care that was open. They gave me some pain medication (not morphine though, they offered but I wouldn't have been able to drive myself home) and zofran for the nausea. Labs looked great, CT was all normal. I didn't think the meds they gave me in the ER did much at the time but when I went home and slept it was easily the best sleep I have gotten in months. And I felt great and had energy the next day, even though the pain and nausea came back. Following up with GI specialist for ongoing GI issues.

TLDR acid blocking medications gave me restless legs. Stopped the meds, slept great. Case closed! Thanks for all your comments and support!

Jump to this post

Great!! Next time you have acid reflux, please consider taking a tbsp of apple cider vinegar. It's tough stuff, to be sure, and only the tough can swallow a whole tbsp of it (heh!), but it seems to stimulate the unclosed pyloric valve into shutting, thus preventing any more reflux. I read of this some time back, couldn't believe it, got reflux one night, kept me up, tried the apple cider vinegar, and I was in blissful sleep an hour later. Repeated about four months later, same result.

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