Category Archives: Do i have sleep apnea?

You may be the last person to know you have sleep apnea. After all, you are asleep when the problem occurs and it goes away when you wake up. Often, it is a friend or loved one who notices that someone’s sleep and breathing during sleep are not quite normal.
So usually husbands, wives, children, and friends are the first to identify the top 10 most common symptoms of sleep apnea and sleep-disordered breathing.
Loud, Irregular Snoring, Snorts, Gasps, and Other Unusual Breathing Sounds During Sleep
Anyone who snores loudly and/or often is a sleep apnea suspect. The snoring stops when the person stops breathing and begins again, sometimes with a snort or a gasp, when the person takes the next breath.
Irregular snoring, with breathing that stops, is different from the quiet, relaxed sawing of ZZZs that most of us do occasionally, especially if we’re sleeping on our back. Apnea-type snoring can be noisy, labored, and sometimes explosive. It may sound as though the person is struggling to breathe—which they are.
Another characteristic of severe apnea-type snoring is that it can happen in almost any position. Rolling over on the side often does not help, although some patients snore and have apnea only when sleeping on their back.
Heavy or labored breathing, without snoring, can be a sign of sleep-disordered breathing that is a close relative of sleep apnea and also needs medical attention.
Unfortunately, a person cannot count on the presence or absence of loud snoring alone to identify sleep apnea. A person may have sleep apnea even if the snoring is quiet or infrequent. The absence of snoring does not rule out sleep apnea as a diagnosis.
Finally, someone who sleeps alone may have sleep apnea without suspecting it at all. They will need to rely on the other nine signs of sleep apnea to suggest a visit with a sleep specialist.