People are always surprised to learn that I used to have sleep apnea. The two most common reactions are usually, "…what the hell is sleep apnea?" or "Oh, my dad has that." It's fairly rare in young people, but I happened to have been born with freakishly gigantic adenoids.
It's like the chicken and the egg argument: did my body create sleep apnea or did sleep apnea create my body? Either way, it raised hell. Sleep is important and since I was physically incapable of truly getting any, my immune system sucked. I was always congested, always sick. I couldn't really breathe through my nose, so I was an exclusive mouth-breather who snored really loudly and woke up groggy with intense cottonmouth every single day. I can't believe I am putting this on blast on the Internet, but because my sleep patterns centered around nightly blackouts, I was also a bedwetter well past potty-training.
But since bed wetting is not apparent to every single person I encounter, the worst side effect of my sleep apnea was the fact that my metabolism was off the wall. I was a husky kid, but in that normal "puppy fat" way — puberty intensified everything and when I was 16 or so, I was in the neighborhood of 260 pounds with a 44-inch waist. Being a blond guy, this frequently prompted people to ask if anyone had ever told me I look like Louie Anderson. Weight loss-wise, nothing seemed to work because my body was constantly in catch-up mode from all the good nights’ sleep I was not getting.
The crazy part is, I didn’t even know I had sleep apnea. The summer after my freshman year of college, when I was lucky enough to have a single room, I was getting my tonsils out, along with my adenoids. The doctor asked me if I had ever experienced sleep apnea and I had no idea what he was talking about. He gave me the Reader’s Digest version and coincidentally, the week before, I was visiting a friend who got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, heard me gasping for air, and woke me up. I was so delirious that I didn’t even remember it happening.
To be the cheesiest human being alive for a second, the day of my surgery was like the first day of the rest of my life. I was able to wake up to go to the bathroom, breathe through my nose, and smell things. I had also lost some weight initially with minimal (read: no) effort, probably because of the sleep factor. I had never had much success with that whole "diet and exercise" thing so I was always really cavalier and half-assed about it. But knowing why I had such a hard time — and that the problem was fixed — made me want to roll with it and keep going.
Old habits die hard, so it took a few years. But I got me a gym membership. I learned about nutrition. I even trained my body to dislike heavy, greasy food, and I am weirdly proud of the fact that Chinese takeout makes me violently ill. I’m not sure what I weigh now, but the jeans I wore yesterday that are currently crumpled up on the floor next to my foot are 33 inches. Now if I can just kick this addiction to Diet Mountain Dew, everything will really be under control.
Are you someone who suffers from sleep apnea? If not, then how many hours of sleep do you get per night? Do you know anyone suffering some sleep apnea?
Comments (15)
I get around seven hours of sleep per night during the summers, and about four to five hours during the school year.
I don't know anyone who has sleep apnea but I sleep very soundly 7-9 hours a night during the summer and 6-8 during the school year.
I sleep 8-10 hours..My mom has this sleep apnea and I've recently found out that it can kill you bcoz you can stop breathing while sleeping...
I am "suspected" of having sleep apnea but my doctors are still trying to figure it out. They have put me on three different kinds of allergy medications to see if it would clear things up, and make it so I can actually BREATHE through my nose. I also have HUMONGOUS tonsils and adenoids. They said that if this last medication doesn't work, I'm going to have to get my adenoids removed D: Does it hurt?
I'm under 30 and was diagnosed with sleep apnea this year. I currently have a CPAP and am going through the various testing to see what can be done for my nasal congestion. I recently had an allergy test, which turned up some things. Although my ENT is pretty sure I'll end up with surgery for my deviated septum.
I'm convinced I had an episode of sleep apnea once a few weeks ago. Of course I can't verify it, but, man, I felt like I spent the whole night gasping for air. I dreamt I was crying and sobbing the whole time, and I couldn't catch my breath.
Just after that one night, I felt so tired the next morning. I can't even imagine sleeping like that every single night.
I know a few with sleep apnea. My sleep varies... I am best with 7-8 hours of sleep.
oooooh, mountain dew is badddddddd stuff
I knew a guy who had sleep apnea and suffered from sleep paralysis sometimes. I had never heard of it before I read his terrifying blog entry about the hallucinations he would experience during paralysis. I also just read a book featuring a man who suffered from sleep apnea and seizures if he didn't have a special breathing machine at night. Sleep apnea scares the crap out of me now! I'm happy for you that you do not have to worry about it anymore :)
I don't suffer from sleep apnea, but I only get about 7 hours of sleep a night - 8 if I'm lucky. I have a really bad habit of going to bed at about 12 or 1 and now I can't even fall asleep at 10 anymore. :P
I never heard of that..... O.o... so u can't sleep if you have sleep apnea...?
I have sleep apnea and I'm 19. It was a hard diagnosis because I don't snore and can breathe through my nose just fine. I definately do have an extremely short neck though. I suffer from sleep paralysis frequently and several nights I will hallucinate most of time instead of actually sleeping.
The exhaustion from sleep apnea has caused me to experience seizures, severe confusion, and falling asleep randomly...like narcolepsy. I'd get confused so bad that I cant't remember where I live a lot of the time. Not the address, not what my house looks like, nothing...I can't tell you what city I'm in. I've lived there for five years and will wandering around the neighborhood knocking on doors hoping one of them is mine.
I get various hours of sleep ahaha it varies from day to day ! Sometimes I go to bed at two, wake up at ten. Some days I go to bed at three, wake up at eleven something or twelve. Sometimes even four and wake up at 12 ! Hopefully when school starts I won't get only like, two hours of sleep :P it's only because I exercise really late ahaha I'm pretty much not allowed to exercise so it's the only time I can do it !
I've known about sleep apnea because I read an article about dieting and being too underweight [this was when I checked my BMI, which is 17- underweight for my age and height] and the effects could be developing sleep apnea ! So, I looked up what it was, cause it sounded serious lol
But wait, if you have your tonsils out, does that mean you CAN'T get it, since you were able to breath afterwards when you got yours out ? Because I don't have my tonsils !
I have sleep apnea I'm 21 female and fairly thin. Have always been thin but I snore like its my job! There have been plenty of times were I have stopped breathing all stopped breathing all together in my sleep and my ex had to shake me awake. Unfortunately my husband doesn't notice when I stop breathing so I'm afraid one day I'll stop breathing and that'll be it...he notice in the morning when he wakes up to a stiff body lol. And my pediatrician said I had abnormally large tonsils which caused it and is the reason why I constantly get strep throat...no clue why they never removed them.
wow, i get like 3 hours of sleep a night. : ( I am always tired, and don't know what to do..