Has anyone been tested for sleep apnea?

[TheOriginalFAB]

I am going to be and would appreciate any information about it please.

I was a student in a hospital and helped with sleep apnoea tests, so this response is from my knowledge of approx 10yrs ago......so things may have advanced but perhaps it is all the same.
Very simplistically, Sleep apnoea is a sleep disorder characterised by a cessation of breathing which causes your body to wake up, and consequently you don't sleep properly, don't get deep sleep and suffer with daytime sleepiness in the day.
To be tested, you will spend a night in a sleep lab and will have a lot of probes attached to your scalp to measure physiological responses. You will also have your heart rate monitored and a pulse oxymeter on your finger to measure your oxygen saturation levels. You will sleep and data will be recorded from the probes continuously. The sleep technician will be analysing this data all through the night and will indicate your arousals (this is the term to describe the times you may awaken yourself through not breathing). From all the data including the heart/ocygen saturation data it will be determined if you have sleep apnoea and if intervention is needed. This would be a cpap machine that you would need to wear at night to keep your airways open.
Do not worry about the sleep test.....it is a bit of a sterile environment, ie a hospital bed etc but you have your own room and they try to make it a little more like a bedroom, but you will have all these probes everywhere so you may not be able to sleep in your favourite position but you are likley to sleep and from the data collected, your consultant will know how best to proceed. good luck.

Thank you. That is what I knew but I am interested in what will happen if all the tests come back normal.

then you don't have sleep apnoea?!....you have to have cessation of breathing for 5 seconds plus for sleep apnoea......if you have shorter arousals you may have mild sleep apnoea that doesn't warrant intervention. But the tests will show if something is amiss.
If nothing shows up in the tests and there is still aperceived problem, you may get a re-test, otherwise you have something other than sleep apnoea?

I am just so tired all the time and it isn't normal to be sleeping in the day as much as I do. I don't even feel better when I have napped in the day. I feel I could do with sleeping for a few days but that isn't going to happen with 3 kids and various animals to look after.

are you a little overweight and do you have a large neck circumferance? Not always the case but usually these 2 factors contribute to sleep apnoea.
The tests will show if you are waking yourslef in the night and not slepping efficiently.
If no sleep apnoea, then may be best to go to GP for generic tests. maybe it is anaemia or maybe you are coming down with an illness, or maybe you do just need a break!

I am over weight but don't have a big neck circumference. All my blood tests are normal.

maybe the tests will show it is apnoea. the consultant will talk to you about it when you have the test. If it is not apnoea, then go back to the dr and see if there is any further investigation that can be done. good luck

The GP has already said he can't do anything else and sometimes in medicine one just doesn't know what is wrong. He will refer me to X but that is for the pain I am in.