Sleep apnea?

[Littleanchor]

How do you know if you might have sleep apnea if you don’t sleep with anyone? Does anyone have this?

Partner and I have separate bedrooms and he is a very deep sleeper whilst I am a light sleeper. I never feel refreshed when waking up, have fatigue during the day and sometimes wake up with headaches. I don’t know if I snore all the time but sometimes as I am falling asleep I will suddenly snore and wake myself up. When I am on my back asleep, I have nightmares and I wake up multiple times in the night. I am a 32 year old female who is not overweight. Am I likely to just be a light sleeper who snores sometimes or should this be something I get checked out?

Get yourself to the gp, it’s definitely worth a referral to a sleep clinic. Both me and my DH have sleep apnea. Head aches in the morning are a good indicator. Do you urinate a lot at night? I went from 15-16 times a night to very rarely going just once. Nightmares are also common, it’s your brain fighting to keep you Alive. I dream much less these days.

waiting lists can be very long in some places so if you can afford it, consider going private. An at home sleep test is about £300 and a cpap with mask about £1000-1200 and it will last you 3-5 years.

you also drive have to be fat to have apneas. There are multiple types and not everybody is fat. I had sleep apnea at 12 st, it’s down to my palate and throat being flappy ( or some such thing)

My partner has sleep apnea and bought an apnea pillow before he did anything else and honestly it's been amazing. He doesn't snore, doesn't stop breathing anymore. Its something to do with holding your head in the right position I think. About £25 and has changed everything - might be worth looking into?

It’s worth speaking to your GP, they can arrange a test - my partner did his at home

It's worth asking your GP about. The testing is all done at home now with a machine you borrow for the night. It's one of those things that is easy to help with and can have a big impact on quality of life and health, so it is well worth looking into.

I had a rep for snoring as a skinny 10 year old. It's not always "lifestyle factors"!

If you do go to your GP they'll likely run through a questionnaire called the Epworth Sleepiness Scale and use that as a guide to see whether a sleep study is worthwhile. You might find it helpful to do the questionnaire yourself. It's not a direct diagnosis of sleep apnea but if you get a high score then it's worth following up on.

There are apps that might be able to help, they record you all night and spot periods of snoring and might catch the noses associated with sleep apnea. Also some smart watches have a sleep apnea setting on them you could use, if you have a watch.

the hospital near me uses a viatom checkme pulse oximeter watch (they loan the out for a sleep study before your first appointment with the consultant). You can actually buy them online for about £130 - if you can afford it, it might be worth buying one of these, so that you can take evidence to your GP.

I wouldn't bother with buying special tech upfront - doing the sleepiness scale as @GasperyJacquesRoberts posted above followed by GP seems the most sensible route to me.

You can always throw money at it - you can even buy a CPAP machine privately if you want - but personally I'm not sure what benefit you'd get by not starting with the GP.

If you are keen to spend money on it, I'd save it up for trying some non-NHS masks if you do get a CPAP. Mask fit makes a big difference and while the NHS offers a decent choice of masks they are limited in brands. Some people just suit another brand's designs a bit better.

Epworth Sleepiness scale does not necessarily identify a problem, though, so can’t be relied upon as a measure of whether you are stopping sleeping. I didn’t score very highly in the Epworth questionnaire, but a sleep study showed I have sleep apnea, and now use a CPAP. I think the Epworth sleepiness scale is more to assess whether you are safe to do various activities / work (eg drivIng). Do go via the GP and ask for a referral. If you can take evidence with you to the GP (eg from a smart watch tracking your sleep, or similar) that may help get you the referral. Go through the NHS where possible, as (certainly at my hospital) they offer a check-up every year, and they replace whatever components on the CPAP that need replacing (it is hugely expensive to buy the parts privately - eg £50 for a bit of tubing, £50 for part of a mask etc etc).

Thanks everyone for the responses. I don’t score anything at all on that scale because I have insomnia and would never doze off anywhere. I have to have very specific conditions to be able to fall asleep. I could be fighting for my life with tiredness and I would still never doze off.

recently I have been having these hypnic jerk things (that’s what I think they are). They’re keeping me awake for hours, every time I go to fall asleep I just jolt awake. I’m so sick of being tired all the time