3 ms·
If people with sleep apnea uniformly thought they felt like hell, the diagnosis would be easy. People adjust to all kinds of crazy things, so it's not easy, but
by irons 16y ago
If people with sleep apnea uniformly thought they felt like hell, the diagnosis would be easy. People adjust to all kinds of crazy things, so it's not easy, but another person in bed with you telling you that you periodically stop breathing shouldn't be ignored.
There's a big difference between steady snoring and interrupted breathing, even if you're not noisily gasping for breath. I'd say my quality of sleep is only about 15% better since I started using CPAP, a meaningful difference if by no means night and day, but I'm also less likely to die of a heart attack in my fifties or sixties.
- tptacek 16y agoThe people I know with diagnosed sleep apnea do feel like hell. I had always assumed the heart disease risk correlated with the disrupted sleep, not the momentary lack of breath.
- irons 16y agoI had sleep apnea for years, which a study eventually categorized as "moderate to severe", and while I wasn't operating on four hours of sleep, I didn't feel too bad either. I didn't even drink coffee. When the brain notices it's starting to suffocate and jolts one into waking up enough to recover from an apnea event, it releases a small amount of cortisol, dozens or hundreds of times per night. That's the source of the long-term cardio risk, as I understand it.
- carbocation 16y agoThough a bit unclear, the current favored theory is that pulmonary hypoxia per se leads to risk. Unlike other vascular territory which dilates due to hypoxia, the pulmonary vasculature constricts. Over time, this leads to pulmonary arterial hypertension, which can lead to right heart failure.