Snoring, large tonsils, possible sleep apnea

[aideesmum]

My dd aged 4 has huge tonsils, snores bad, and possible sleep apnea. About 18 months ago the gp referred her to ent dept at the hospital at my request. As dd doesn't suffer with tonsillitis it had been dismissed by the doctor but he did find fluid in her ear so have been back every 6 months to check, it slightly affects her hearing and doc hopes it will sort itself out!
We went on holiday just before her last appointment a few weeks ago and I slept in the same room, well struggled to sleep and I realised just how bad her snoring was and it seemed to me she actually struggles to breathe at times and stopped breathing several times only for a few seconds but felt like ages. I told the doc about this so we are now waiting for an appointment for a sleep study.
Does anyone have similar experiences and did it finally get sorted?
I don't really want her to end up having an operation but want it sorted, seems to be taking forever to get anywhere!

Yes! DS woke every two hours screaming from birth til the age of four when he had his tonsils out. The first night after the op he slept through, and every night since.

We went to our GP who referred us to a sleep clinic initially.

Both my children have their (huge) tonsils and adenoids removed at around 3 1/2. The eldest used to wake up drenched in sweat from the effort to sleep through his sleep apnoea. When I realised what was happening I would watch him sleeping and he would stop breathing for 6/7 seconds before gasping for breath. It also explained why, as a small baby, when sleeping his chest would draw in as he breathed in. Horrific really. The fashion at the moment is to avoid removal at all costs whereas for my generation it was the other way around. We had private health care so it wasn't a problem getting it done. The consultant said the ones with SA are cut and dry, i.e. removal is always recommended. Children do their growing in their sleep (growth hormone released from pituitary gland I think) so SA can stunt growth if left untreated. It affected my son's behaviour in the day because he was so grumpy and his appetite was very poor so he was terribly skinny. All these things resolved after he had the op. Hope things work out for you and your daughter.

Thanks for the replies, just wish the appointment would hurry up and come through. My dd is a terrible eater, I did measure her height and weight a few days ago. She is 96cm and 13.9kg so definitely small for her age so this could all be related then?

aideesmum - I have your DD's twin. Mine is also 4 and exactly the same height/weight. She is scheduled to have a tonsil and adenoidectomy on the 23rd due to massive tonsils and obstructive sleep apnoea. Her sleeping is ok (apart from the stopping breathing bit!) but her appetite isn't great - I'm convinced that trying to push food past the enormous tonsils must be quite an effort if not painful too. I've mentioned in almost every GP appointment she's had that her tonsils are huge but it was never expanded on. A locum GP who was treating my older DD suggested that we get her seen when he saw that younger DD was mouth breathing (she's also still quite dribbly at 4).

Our appointment came quite quickly as we were able to take a last-minute cancellation (usual waiting list was approximately 20 weeks from referral) and though the consultant was pretty dismissive initially, he said that DD would need to undertake a sleep-study first to see how her overnight oxygen levels were. On our return appointment, the report clearly said her levels were frequently dipping quite low, I still felt the consultant was being a bit dismissive and I'm not sure he'd have recommened removal had I not challenged him and said that surely any drop in oxygen levels must be a bad thing (he started to say that there were not proper statistics to say how bad dipping levels could be?) That appointment was in early May and we were told that the waiting list would be a couple of months at most. Turns out the consultant clearly thought there was a significant problem as the operation has been listed as 'urgent'! We're now on countdown to the 23rd. DD is nervous and keeps saying she doesn't want them out but I'm sure that the improvement in her overall wellbeing will be worth it.

Hope you get your appointment very soon. Be prepared not to have any sleep yourself when it happens though - DD usually goes off to sleep quite quickly but the 'excitement' of being in hospital made her act like a giddy-goat and it was nearly 11pm by the time she finally dropped off! Coupled with a noisy ward and the most uncomfortable reclining chair thing, I think I managed an hour or so of sleep at about 4am.