I Got a Sleep Study in My 30s. It Probably Saved My Life

Fellas (and it's mainly guys, though women are affected too), if your SO is complaining about your snoring, or you're just "feeling old", get a sleep study. What this article is talking about - is stress, and that stress is slowly killing you. It was killing me. Making my blood pressure higher, making my cholesterol numbers slightly out of whack, affecting my A1C levels. Nothing terrible - but all "out of adjustment", but easily correctable with meds.

Then my doctor suggested a sleep study (my dentist had already recommended one due to my teeth grinding). I did it. Ended up getting a CPAP - and that's been a life-changer! I instantly felt at least 10-15 years younger, was able to think more clearly, my wife has been able to get good sleep. In fact, I went from being able to wake up everyone in the house with my loud snoring to my wife checking on me through the night to make sure I'm still alive because I'm now so quiet!

I absolutely love it! The machine itself is whisper quiet. I use nasal pillows instead of the face mask and it's very comfortable. Takes a couple of days to get used to, may have to adjust the settings on your unit to make it work for you, but boy is it worth it!

My sleep issue costed me jobs, romantic relationships, and the finest years of my life. If you are severely sleep deprived, everything seems like shit, and it goes downhill from there. I fixed my sleep issue in my mid-30s and life has been slowly getting better. Better physical health, emotional stability, and social life. People repeatedly comment that I am a completely different person (in a good way!).

As noted here, sleep apnea is a huge issue indeed, but I would like to suggest more mundane solutions first. Try different mattresses, pillows, and sleeping temperatures to see what fits you. Reduce caffeine intake for a month. Sleep an hour earlier than your usual for two weeks. Try light exercise everyday. They all add up.

I wish I could get my lost years (and jobs, relationships) back, but that's life.

Same; got a study after having a really bad bout of headaches and mood swings. I was suffocating in my sleep with 60AHI. Anything above 5 is apnea, above 30 is severe.

From what I understand, apnea is insidious because it develops slowly and your body acclimates to your increasing CO2 levels, even though the lack of oxygen is causing brain damage. Getting ASV therapy has been a game-changer. I was turning into a cranky dumb brute and ASV started reversing it, once I acclimated to therapy. That took about 4 months though.

I had a bad experience with a sleep study. I snore and stop breathing in my sleep as per my wife. I went to a dr. to rectify the situation.

Was told after the sleep study that I snore and stop breathing “within reasonable limits” but I fell asleep in < 1 min and slept 99% of the time. They said I was “a tired person” and that I need more sleep… I am not a tired person and adding an extra hour of sleep the next 2 weeks didn’t improve anything.

The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth and I’m hesitant now to follow up. I’ve had a few experiences like this at drs for other issues. IDK if it’s something about me but it’s impacted my trust in the medical community and makes me a bit sad even thinking about it and sharing here.

I got a sleep study at the age of 24 because my then-girlfriend (now wife) said "I got used to the snoring, but that thing where you stop breathing really freaks me out". The what now? In hindsight, I'd had signs of sleep apnea since I was in my teens despite being a healthy weight.

I was diagnosed with 'mild to moderate' sleep apnea and told to not drink, and to exercise more. No CPAP needed. And they were right- if I do those things, I don't have many problems. But then again, I can't always do those things.

What really helped though, and I'm loathe to even say it, was taking high absorption magnesium. I hate it because there are very limited studies that say it should work, and it's mostly promoted by absolute quacks. And yet, when I take it, I sleep really well without snoring or having apnea issues and if I stop, I sleep terribly.

I have sleep apnea . I once went to Colorado without having a piece. Altitude changes the ability for your blood to absorb oxygen and you have ti hydrate often (I was buying one water bottle every time I went up a flight of stairs) even when I was doing that I had brain fog and headaches .

It’s hard to bring your cpap to Confrences because you must find distilled water or deal with the fact that your cpap will collect impurities with the water. Regardless it gets my brain fog away and since I’m not hypoxic it enhances my ability to recall things , problem solving and how I feel . Sleep apnea is real and if you have brain fog or other symptoms get tested. It takes a day to do the study but it is worth it . It is literally like a second wind to yourself .

Also, stay hydrated this is a big thing I have to work on personally.

I know it is a bad idea and I honestly don't know if I have sleep apnea. Always wake up not rested enough. I don't want go through the whole sleep study cycle because my insurance wouldn't not pay for it.

Can I just get a sleep apnea machine and try it for, let's say, a week? Is it dangerous?

I got a sleep study years ago, and again more recently. An ahi of 7 or something. I tried the CPAP machine for 7 weeks and it made no noticeable difference. I've got a mouth guard (mandibula advancement splint) which reduces snoring but again no real difference in fatigue. I've also had nasal surgery but still no real difference. I'm a little overweight but nothing crazy.

Slightly annoying really that I haven't found a magic bullet to fatigue, unsure what to try next (other than just lose some weight & exercise more).

I used this app to figure out that snoring isn't my issue:

https://snorefox.com/en/

Another important fact: you can have sleep apnea even if you don't snore.

I sign of apnea is if you wake up from sleep with your heart racing for no apparent reason. It's become common to equate snoring to apnea but with the latter you start choking till your body is forced to wake you up, increasing stress, preventing restorative deep sleep and subsequently creating tiredness.

> Waking myself up became an hours-long ritual of energy drinks and coffee.

This doesn't really mean anything in of itself as your body will happily normalize to whatever caffeine tolerance you feed it at a regular schedule.

How were you guys able to get a sleep study?? I tried getting one twice and they gave me this stuff that I took home and inserted into my nostrils wrapping around my head and attached to my chest and finger and that alone completely destroyed my sleep. I struggled until like 6am every night and then once I fell asleep all of it got promptly detached from my body because I roll around a lot in my sleep.

Long story short they couldn’t collect any data about my sleep.

I don’t get why sleep studies are necessary to get CPAP / APAP machines. These should be over the counter. No you don’t need a study or a doctor to tell you what pressure to use - you can figure that out based on the quality of sleep the machine detects or your own tolerance for discomfort or just by using the automatic settings. What a racket.

I learned abt sleep apnea from HN a couple of years ago. Treatment has made a noticeable improvement to my quality of life. I went the surgical route (EASE, MMA, pharyngoplasty) and while it's not made me 100% (one of the surgeons was a butcher), I was able to work and drive again.

I developed sleep apnea from poor posture and was able to fix it by correcting my posture. Developing a hunch or anterior pelvic tilt is especially a risk for desk workers and makes breathing harder, a little bit of yoga or posture correction exercises can save you a lot of trouble.

I recently had a sleep study after approaching my family doctor concerning my class II occlusion lower-jaw.

It came back conclusive for moderate sleep apnea with recommendations to use a CPAP device. I'm opting for surgery instead.

One unconventional datapoint for reference - docs couldn't make sense of my apneas, have none of the normal risk factors. Eventually discovered it was a subtle oral food allergy.

What should i do if my SO is the snorer and i'm the light sleeper? Right now I just wake up after 3-5 hours every night and move to different bed for the remaning hours of sleep.

These kinds of issues seem VERY common from my experience.

I wonder what happened here, it doesn't look like the kind of traits that would be naturally selected.

I don't know if it saved my life, but my life certainly has improved after a sleep study about a year ago where I discovered that I have a moderate case of sleep apnea.

Mine is mild enough to where I'm able to get away with just the oral appliance and a nasal strip at night (and avoiding alcohol and losing a bit of weight), but these alone have made me sleep considerably better, and I feel a lot more rested throughout the day. I'm generally nicer to people, I don't yell nearly as much, my thinking is a bit clearer, and of course there are other medical benefits to not drinking and not being overweight).

PSA, if anyone here snores, or feels like they're not getting good rest at night, I very very very strongly recommend getting a sleep study.

Anyone try mouth taping while sleeping?

Sorry to be the guy talking about a tangential subject, but in the middle of the article a unrelated video autoplays. Why do websites do this? It breaks the concentration in the article, and personally just pisses me off that it's strong-arming me into watching something that I didn't ask for.