What kind of sleep apnea(central or obstructive) would drop your pulse while you sleep, guessing due to not breathing? Almost as if I am holding my breath underwater and then come to the surface to get air. Thx
Also these apneas some to occur in sleep after large physical stresses or work stress. Recently after a 80 mile ride and 4000m swim, my blood-ox would drop to 92 while resting but go back up to 99 when moving around. At sleep, at time, it would drop below 90 and set of the blood-ox alarm. I would then gasp for air.
After some previous marathons, my pulse would dip under 45 a number of times and set off the alarm as well. I would then gasp for air.
Both would drop them, but obstructive sleep apnea is by far more common.
I’m in the middle of starting treatment for this myself. No, I don’t fit ANY of the typical body type/neck criteria for an apnea candidate. I’m not even 40 yet, not at all overweight (or even close - have always had a full 6-pack abs from low body fat), finish FOP in all my races and have won my AG several times in smaller local races in M30-40 division.
I had been developing worsening problems sleeping in the past few years (although I’ve always had problem staying asleep since my 20s), and this year it got so bad I went to get a sleep study after realizing it had been more than 2 years since I slept more than 4.5 hours in a row. Turns out I have severe sleep apnea in REM sleep, with 30 wakeups per hour when I’m in REM.
I now have a CPAP machine - it’s gradually helping, but it’s going to take a few weeks to adjust at least , at least for me it’s far from an instant fix. But if you have problems with sleep like mine, it’s worth getting a sleep study.
My sleeping issues weren’t affecting me at work (yet) as I had no daytime sleepiness to the point that I would fall asleep on the job or at the wheel, but it severely affected my workouts, to the point that I sometimes would be yawning from sleep deprivation repeatedly throughout something like a a hardcore 8 x 400 Vo2 max track workout with my HR at my max (185).
Agree that you should ask your Dr. about getting a sleep study. I was diagnosed with apnea about five years ago (I have a small mouth) and have been using CPAP machine since. I have noticed that my apnea episodes can be worse when I’m more fatigued. I assume that’s because I sleep deeper and the throat tissue collapses more. My HR drops into the low 40s during sleep, but then will definitely rise after an apnea episode.
I’ll also add - the pulseox isn’t that sensitive for sleep apnea, although sats <90% , if real and not an artifactual misreading, are probably pretty good for suggesting that apnea is an issue for you.
I had zero oxygen desaturation events during my sleep study. My sats were all over 95%, even in my apnea events.
However, when I hit REM sleep, I had over 30 awakening events per hour measured; enough to put me into the ‘severe apnea’ category for REM sleep. (I don’t remember waking up 30 times, but apparently they could tell disruptions to sleep with the brain electrodes that are part fo the sleep study.)
They’ll measure your actual apnea/hypopnea episodes during the sleep study, which are the real measure. The oxygen saturation itself may completely miss significant apnea, especially in athletes like ourselves.
I’ll also add that slow HR doesn’t seem to be an important marker for apnea. I warned my testers that I’m a triathlete, so they didn’t freak out when they recorded my 37 baseline sleep heartrate.
Thank you guys… ya I will look into a sleep study. My fear is that I won’t fall asleep(the head contraption and not in my bed) and the test will then be worthless. If they let me take a sleeping pill, than they could at least see if I have apnea of some sort.
Thank you guys… ya I will look into a sleep study. My fear is that I won’t fall asleep(the head contraption and not in my bed) and the test will then be worthless. If they let me take a sleeping pill, than they could at least see if I have apnea of some sort.
Dont’ worry - you WILL fall asleep at some point, like it or not. They will monitor your brain waves to assess depth of sleep (they can quantify % of which sleep stage), apneas, restless legs, etc.
If you aren’t sleeping well consistently, and it’s affecting your daily performance, you should just get one. In fact, it’s BETTER if you don’t sleep well during the sleep test as they’ll have a better idea of what your problem is.
On my sleep study I was so awake between 1AM and 6PM after going to bed at 11PM that they had to put a disclaimer ‘patient was awake for most of the evening which limited evaluation’ but that still didnt change the important conclusions, specifcally my apnea.
Curious what your sleep study result told you? I’m having this done tomorrow night. I was hit by a van during a triathlon back in 2006 and received the nickname “apnea boy” in the hospital from the nurses as my oxygen levels would drop considerably whenever I fell asleep, based off a pulse-ox on my finger. It’s taken me until now to finally have the sleep study done! Never wanted to get a CPAP, but I’ve since learned how harmful sleep apnea can be and have decided to get the test…
My girlfriend went through a similar thing. Snoring like but not really. She’d almost gasp, wake up, then roll over and go back to sleep, over and over. They did a sleep study and found that sleep apnea woke her up an average of 200 times per night. She had chronic aches and pains also because of lack of REM sleep. The choices were surgery or CPAP. So she went with CPAP. All the issues went away pretty much immediately.
Either obstructive (OSA) or central (CSA) can result in desaturations. Think of obstructive as the soft tissue in the back of your throat collapsing and physically blocking the airflow. O2 levels drop and CO2 levels rise which results in the person gasping themselves awake which opens their airways. They will take a breath and get their O2 levels up. This happens repetitively over months and years and results in fatigue, BP issues, Erectile dysfunction, depression and a whole host of other diseases. Being overweight is likely the most common factor but deviated septum or other structural defects.
CSA is where the brain doesn’t tell the body to breath. Frequently their is no snoring per se as there is no effort to breath so no airflow. Snoring is simply turbulent airflow that hits the uvula causing vibrations. Predisposing risk factors include heart failure, stroke, altitude, premies.
Anecdotally I tell my skinnier pts to get their airways checked if they have OSA. I have found a few people with deviated septum a causing their OSA.
I am not sure why your pulse ox drops at rest and increases with activity. Are ur fingers cold or is the pulse ox waveform good
SORRY THIS was typed on my iPhone at my dtrs practice.
Hmmm, my boyfriend reports this same behavior from me. The topic came up when I was describing how I feel at the end of really hard runs, like I can’t breathe through my mouth and that a tracheostomy (?) would help.