Sleep Apnea Symptoms Can Be More difficult To Identify Than You Think
Posted by Chester Umber on December 27th, 2009 filed in Sleep HealthLast week I went with my girlfriend to get her hair done. She had spent a considerable amount of time driving me around while I was getting my car worked on, so I kind of owed her. It’s one of those give and take things that are necessary for a healthy relationship.
While we were waiting for her turn, I kept dozing off. She kept elbowing me in the gut to wake me up. But when she was actually getting her hair done, I was a mess. Afterwards she asked why I had stayed up so late the night before. When I told her I had gotten my normal eight hours, she became worried.
Her dad for the longest time had this problem when she was a kid. He would always snore, keeping the whole house awake. Finally her mom convinced him to go see a doctor about it, and it turned out he had sleep apnea. Snoring is one sleep apnea symptom. The worst part is that people that snore usually don’t know that they snore. It takes some courage to confront them with this.
Some of the common symptoms are waking up several times during the night for no reason, excessive snoring, headaches during the day, and feeling tired when you are bored. If you get enough sleep, when you are bored, you should just be bored, and not tired. This is why my girlfriend was worried.
My girlfriend was concerned because I was so tired even though I thought I spent the whole night sleeping the night before. We don’t sleep together, so she doesn’t know if I snore or not. We went to the doctor to get me checked out. One of the big sleep apnea symptoms is feeling tired when you are bored, even though you think you’ve gotten a good nights sleep the night before.
She took me to the same doctor that they saw before, and he went over the symptoms with me. He said it would help if I kept a sleep diary, and record any information I could think of whenever I woke up. She also suggested that I record myself while I sleep. There are telltale signs if you snore that indicate sleep apnea. If you play the tape for the doctor, he’ll know exactly what to do.