Question
Hello and thank you in advance for taking the time to answer my question. Let me start by saying that I am 6'1 tall and about 240lbs. I'm having trouble sleeping. I have to sleep on my side. I wake up multiple times at night. If I try to sleep on my back, I can actually feel that I lose my breath. I have been sleeping on my side now for about 3 years and am beginning to have shoulder, arm and back pain. I have been having episodes where am at work and I have heart palpitations and I feel like am loosing my breath and as if I'm going to faint. I have been taken to the emergency room where I have had a echo, stress test and cat scan. All results come back ok. No abnormalities. The last episode I had, I had a slight fever and half of my face went numb. Many people say these are symptoms of sleep abnea. I'm not so sure. I first started having these symptoms after I had flu like symptoms with cough and fever. I don't know what is happening to me. I'm beginning to worry. This is beginning to have a negative effect on my life. Any advise or comments will be greatly appreciated, thank you.
Answer
You definitely sound like you do have sleep apnea, you have all the classic symptoms. You need to go to a sleep center your local hospital can refer you, or you can go to a pulmonary doctor that handles, lungs who in turn will send you to a sleep center, however it is better to go to the center itself, as the neurologist, pulmonary doctor are all under the same roof and only specialize in sleep. You will need an overnight sleep study, hospitals also have sleep clinics which are cheaper however no one gets refused medical treatment so just get the diagnosis, treatment is medication but mostly a cpap machine, which is a special mask that one wears that exerts pressure through your nose to the airway that keeps it open when you sleep. Being overweight and snoring are the dead give aways of symptoms, even losing 5 pounds helps, also sleep on 2 pillows at night. go to sleepnet.com click on disorders sleep apnea then go to sleep apnea.org and cpap.com all these are great websites for more indepth information on sleep apnea. feel free to email again and get the test as soon as possible, having a sleep disorder is a dreadful disease that can ruin ones life, but after getting proper treatment you will see a major difference. feel free to email again karel
