Can central sleep apnea cause daytime breathlessness?

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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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!

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@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.

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Glad that you have resolved many issues!

It's inspiring to see...

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