{"id":2727,"date":"2019-01-06T12:44:39","date_gmt":"2019-01-06T12:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/veryhealthy.life\/?p=2727"},"modified":"2021-07-29T13:43:30","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T13:43:30","slug":"12-not-so-common-sleep-apnea-symptoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veryhealthy.life\/12-not-so-common-sleep-apnea-symptoms\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Not-So-Common Sleep Apnea Symptoms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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You wake up in the morning, and you don’t think too much about what happened when you passed out, you’re simply assuming that you were probably breathing, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not always. A condition called sleep apnea can affect 7% of adult men. This is a condition where you may stop breathing in your sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about this for a second, your throat is like a garden hose \u2013 it’s a collapsible tube. When you’re wide-awake, your throat muscles stiffen so that your airway doesn’t collapse when you suck in air, but when you’re sleeping, on the other hand, the same process that happens during the day doesn’t work so well. Every time you try and take a breath, your airway sometimes collapses and you are not getting enough oxygen. B stops and oxygen intake for apneas usually last around 10 seconds minimum but can be up to 20 to 30 seconds or longer. Below we have documented the 12 symptoms to pick up on whether or not you have sleep apnea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Tired all the time<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first signal is that you’re tired all the time. Exhaustion is the biggest symptom of sleep apnea. Every time you stop breathing, your brain sends out a call of distress, in actual fact you are waking up throughout the night even if you don\u2019t realize it yourself. Your brain has to be awake for a full 30 seconds to realize that it is awake. But even if you are just waking up for a few seconds, it can completely disrupt your entire sleep cycle and make you feel even more exhausted the next morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But let’s get real, exhaustion is extremely nonspecific and is common in many other conditions that would be more sleep apnea related. So don\u2019t worry, in the next few points, we will go into detail the other signs and symptoms you should look out for in conjunction with extreme exhaustion to know whether or not you should consult your general practitioner about sleep apnea<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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2. Loud Snoring<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The second signal for sleep apnea is extremely loud snoring, besides the exhaustion mentioned above, another major marker of sleep apnea<\/a> is snoring very loudly. When you breathe to a minimally collapsed airway because of vibration which is what the snoring sound you hear is. This blockage of the airway disposes you to sleep apnea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The part that is the most dangerous and most concerning of all though is not the blockage itself but the pausing between stories. Because if there’s no air moving there can\u2019t be noise. loud snoring doesn’t happen every night even when it is chronic, can still be a symptom of sleep apnea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides restoring, your spouse or another may notice snoring, gasping or even struggling to breathe. This is usually extremely dramatic and can be alarming for anyone sitting next to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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3. Falling Asleep Constantly<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

the third signal is that you fall asleep at anytime and in anyplace. If you find yourself dozing off in a movie theater passing out constantly while watching TV on the couch this could point to an extreme sleep apnea related exhaustion. Since your sleep is being severely disturbed, most people fall asleep constantly and what appears to be all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can cause deadly consequences well because you can fall asleep while driving or performing other important and focus oriented daily tasks. At work, it can cause headaches <\/a>with your boss, put you behind on important deadlines and can even make your spouse upset for not completing the chores necessary for the day. As you\u2019ll find, this symptom is one of the more trivial ones that play into the whole sleep apnea picture. Make sure to read the rest of our points to get the full story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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4. Moody & Poor Memory<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The fourth signal of sleep apnea is that you become extremely moody and your memory feels absolutely shot. You\u2019ll notice that you\u2019ll have a hard time remembering simple things like names of friends, what you did just a few minutes ago, and sometimes even what you just ate! Sleep apnea comes with changes in mood and difficulty to memorize and concentrate since we are waking up from anywhere between six to even sixteen times every single night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means our bodies don’t get enough sleep and will not be able to go into the deeper alpha waves of sleep that keep us more focused and alert during the day. Other things you may end up forgetting are where you parked your car, whether or not you fed your pet, and even whether or not you locked your front door before leaving the house!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The feeling is terrible because besides forgetting these details, it stresses you out and everyone around you. On top of that, the moodiness <\/a>that is also caused by it upsets people around you as well and makes you extremely irritable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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5. Headaches<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The fifth sign is that your morning begins with a pounding headache. You\u2019re not able to breathe right and oxygen has not been getting to your brain, so since your brain doesn’t like it, you have a pretty bad headache <\/a>first thing in the morning. This isn’t a specific type of headache in general, and it usually goes away within an hour of waking up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since your brain is getting oxygen as soon as you get up in the early morning after a night of struggling to inhale, your headache will eventually get duller until it seems nonexistent. It\u2019s important to note that this may be a headache that has no accompanying pain in your neck. So even though you may think it is a chiropractic problem or some sort of spinal misalignment, it would be worth getting both checked to find the real culprit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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6. Going to the bathroom Frequently at Night<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The next sleep apnea signal is that you wake up to pee at night frequently. Even though most attribute waking up multiple times to go to the bathroom as a sign of aging due to having a large prostate, it can also point to sleep apnea. This constant having to go to the bathroom is called nocturia. Nocturia <\/a>is that when people wake up due to having a sleep apnea episode, and they then realize they have to pee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So unlike waiting like many people do to go to the bathroom first thing in the morning, most have an uncontrollable urge in the middle of the night. If this begins to happen to you and you are under the age of 60, it\u2019s important to consult a physician who would be able to advise you on whether you may be beginning to develop sleep apnea. The sooner you nip it in the bud the better!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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7. Scratchy mouth or Dry throat<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever woken up with a raspy voice and a scratchy, dry, irritated throat? If so, you may have experienced one of the main \u201cnot-so-common\u201d symptoms of sleep apnea.
As most people do, you probably snore with your mouth open. As you can probably imagine, since you have airflow constantly going through your mouth to try to supplement all the oxygen <\/a>that’s not getting to your brain, you won’t have much saliva being produced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ends up leaving you with a very dry mouth and throat first thing in the morning. Gargling with salt water helps the inflammation of the throat go down but it isn\u2019t the solution, unfortunately. The only way to solve this is to consult your primary care physician if you suspect you have sleep apnea. Make sure that multiple symptoms from this list are present in your day to day life, since many other things can mimic the same symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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8. Irritability<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Waking up constantly throughout the night even if you are unaware of it, can have a lot of adverse effects on your body. As we mentioned earlier, your body will still be in a state of exhaustion which will make you extra cranky, tired and ready to kill the next thing you lay your eyes on. You will also be moody. This deadly combination not only makes it nearly unbearable for people to be around you but also will make you extremely irritable. This irritability will also have a negative impact on your daily life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At work, you won\u2019t be as pleasing to be around, so customer service will suffer. You may even find that friends around you who know that you aren\u2019t yourself may ask you if you are doing okay. True friends will tell you as it is and this will be a good way to pick up on this symptom if you haven\u2019t already discovered it yourself. You may just get even more riled up and frustrated over small things that never used to bother you. Either way, irritability <\/a>rears its ugly head in many different ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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9. Hypertension<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

High blood pressure<\/a> is much more common with people who get older. But when in combination with the other signs and symptoms on this list, it could be a sign you have a tumor growing and developing in your pancreas. This is one of the most common symptoms linked to sleep apnea. Since oxygen is depleted from your body and brain when you stop breathing at night, it begins to constrict the blood vessels and the blood flowing through them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In doing so, high blood pressure becomes the number one symptom to pop up. The worst part about this though is that this high blood pressure doesn\u2019t only happen at night and has to be monitored, but it also happens and persists throughout the day making it worse. This sometimes adds to additional headaches and migraines popping up throughout the day that may otherwise not be there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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10. Overweight or Obesity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Being overweight <\/a>makes one of the most targeted people for sleep apnea and other sleep disorders. Since we now know that sleep apnea is caused due to the closing of your windpipes not allowing air between your mouth and your brain, when you have fatty tissue that develops around your neck and upper chest, it causes there to be more weight placed on this area. In turn, it makes this a much more common occurrence in people over their normal bodyweight limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your neck circumference is greater than 17 inches in men and 16 inches in women, you are even more predisposed to developing sleep apnea. Sometimes all it takes is going on the right diet and exercise plan to lose enough weight around your neck to prevent this restriction of your airways by the fatty tissue present there. Immediately some patients find relief and can go back to sleeping without a BiPAP machine or other device aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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11. Poor Concentration\/Focus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Since your brain <\/a>never has a chance to recover due to the exhaustion of not ever getting enough deep restful sleep comes with a lot of horrible side effects. One that will be the most common one is poor concentration and poor focus. If you have ever gone to be extremely late at night and had to wake up early the next morning for an exam, you probably know the feeling. You don\u2019t feel rested and you can\u2019t concentrate well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lecturer just seems to be talking and your mind keeps wandering, sometimes just thinking about the next time you will get to hit the sack again and get a few zzz’s Focus seems to stray and bam. . . . class is done and nothing has been completed. You forgot that the exam was right in front of you the whole time or if you got a chance to actually put answers down they seemed really hard to get. This is what happens to you and your body when you constantly don\u2019t have enough sleep. Sufferers of sleep apnea go through this on a regular basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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12. Gasping at Night<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Since your air is restricted you may feel in the middle of the night like someone is choking the life out of you. In doing so, you\u2019ll begin gasping like you ran a hard race. This will wake you up and you\u2019ll want to get out of bed to try and catch your breath again. You may even start heaving depending on how much oxygen you lost and need. Sometimes nauseous, almost vomiting <\/a>feelings can occur as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you start having similar episodes like this on a regular basis over the course of many nights of sleep or even daytime naps, it\u2019s important to consider whether or not you have sleep apnea and whether or not you should consult a physician. This gasping which may seem innocent at first is one of the best first indications that you are developing sleep apnea. Weighing this up with other symptoms that may develop is a sure sign that you may actually have sleep apnea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\r\n

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