How does sleep apnea make you feel in the morning?

Hello @robertwills, Welcome to Connect. I think your question depends on who you ask and whether or not their sleep apnea treatment is going well for them. I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea five years ago and it took me a year or so to feel better and not as tired in the morning when I wake up. There are a lot of discussions, comments and newsfeed articles on sleep apnea that you might find interesting if not helpful. Here's a link with the search results of Connect for sleep apnea - https://connect.mayoclinic.org/search/discussions/?search=sleep+apnea.

Have you been diagnosed with sleep apnea?

Sleep apnea itself made me feel like I was having a heart attack when I woke up, gasping for breath, my heart hammering like the end of the world. After calming down, I'd feel as tired as I was when I went to sleep. This went on far too long.

With a CPAP, I wake up feeling much better, actually rested. I got my life back!

That is, until I had a stroke nearly five years ago. Now pain wakes me up and pursues me all hours of the day. What sleep I do get, though, is greatly improved because of my trusty CPAP.

I have a form of central sleep apnoea, which means my upper airway stays open during sleep, however my body just doesn’t take breaths, leading to significant and sudden hypoxemia within a couple of minutes of falling asleep. These two-three minute sleeps was what I would have for maybe two hours, then there would be so much adrenaline coursing around that I was shaking and wide awake (despite being extremely fatigued and exhausted). Six hours later, the same thing: collapse pretty much where I was standing because I’m so tired, and be asleep for two - three mins, while not breathing, and each wake cycle I’d be gasping for air and my heart racing and shaking my entire chest (I could feel the blood pressure was so high, I was sensing my pulse in the arteries in my legs, arms, and in my brain).
It went on until my body was unable to produce enough adrenaline to wake me, and I would start to go four-five mins asleep with zero breathing.
I honestly thought sleep would end my life, but when I explained this to a colleague (I was working in the sleep technology industry) he said I should test a few non invasive ventilators - so I did.
These machines work on the correct breath rate, and correct volume of air, and provide the pressures (IPAP and EPAP) necessary to ensure adequate gas exchange in the alveoli.
Monitoring oxygen shows I’m not critically and dangerously desaturating anymore, and I have been using ventilation to keep me alive for the last 9 years (used during every second I’m asleep, as well as when I can’t efficiently breathe during the day (sustained sitting position at my desk, etc - I just put the vent on and I can breathe while I type..I work from home).
It took me around 5 months to become completely accustomed to ventilation (I started out being awake for hours on the machine because it was so different from the usual absence of breathing that I would fall asleep with), however after that time, I got so used to it that when I feel drowsy I actually ‘crave’ (similar to a food craving when hungry) the support to breathe that it provides. I still use the pulse oxymetry lead a couple of times a week (the lead connects to the machine, like the ones at the hospital with the fingertip lead that plugs into the monitor), just to make sure the breath rate and volume of air is working to provide enough air movement to keep oxygen levels normal.
Before using, when I woke up after a few cycles of zero air, my hands, lips, tongue, and legs would be a grey-blue colour and be painful like when you’ve cut off the circulation to limbs, and now, none of that occurs.
In terms of what I call metabolic adjustment, it took my body around two years to get back to proper cellular metabolism of oxygen (when chronically low in oxygen, the body makes adjustments in the way cells function and replicate), but once that recovery took place, I started to really feel like I was alive again.
I used to have such debilitating headaches from low oxygen that I would sometimes not be able to hear, lose most of my vision, and be unable to walk in a straight line (I would crawl from the bedroom to the bathroom, the room spinning like a carnival ride the entire way).
A savvy sleep doc prescribed a ventilator once I showed him the vent statistics from the one I had used from work, saying there was no need to wait for a diagnostic sleep study - the report clearly showed only 4% independent breathing, and he said to me he wondered how I was still alive and hadn’t had a massive stroke or heart attack.
So that’s how it was for me with a complicated form of central sleep apnoea. I would not wish it on anyone, because it’s so frightening, and very concerning for health.

Thank you for your responses but I was asking for what it feels like having sleep apnea and waking up in the morning and how you progress through the day? If you have to wake up, say at 6 am, was it painful or you could get out of bed or you could get out of bed but fell asleep three hours later, the day awful, etc.

Before my treatment, I dragged myself through the days.

My job performance was terrible. I couldn't concentrate, and I didn't know why. I drifted from job to job, rare moments of brilliance saving me from complete unemployment.

But to this day, more than 20 years later, there are former co-workers who won't talk to me, having written me off as a lazy loser. (If they only knew how hard I worked just to get through the day!)

I never fell asleep while driving, but I was close, many, many times. I had no energy at home, either. I just wanted to sleep, but I woke up exhausted every damned time.

Yet almost immediately after I got treatment, I created one of my most successful projects, for a very large defense contractor. USAF later called it an "Industry Best Practice". (Not bad for a "lazy loser", eh?)

Wow. That is an insightful story. Was the exhaustion you felt before treatment like normal exhaustion or tiredness or did it feel any different? Did it affect your physical energy, like were you able to walk up stairs without fatigue?

It was almost like being drugged. I was bone-weary. I couldn't think clearly, or stay focused.

I didn't feel achy muscles, as though I had been breaking rocks, though. It was just exhaustion.

The thing is, it had happened so gradually I didn't notice it at the time. I can't even tell you how long it had been going on. A couple of years? Longer? I think it was a problem for maybe five years, gradually worsening until it got critical.

Getting a CPAP changed my life, though. I can't tell you how much better I felt, and how rapidly. Like a miracle.

Still drowsy and sleepy because you actually have not slept but your body is trying to keep you awake due to not breathing.

I will wake up in the morning feeling like I have not had enough sleep. In my sleep study, I stopped breathing 100 times during the 3 hours I managed to sleep! I don’t wake up starving for breath, but I have had my sleep doctor and two independent doctors tell me that I need a CPAP and that it lowers blood pressure and I take a blood pressure pill. So I have decided to get one. I have heard that an APAP is better since it uses air pressure only when you stop breathing, so I will ask about that. Bad thing though is that I can’t see my sleep doctor until March!!! It is now December.

I was just recently diagnosed with sleep apnea. Now I have an idea why I don’t wake up refreshed and full of energy. I often feel the need for an afternoon nap.