Sleep Apnea??

[gwenllian111]

My doctor sent me home with an oxygen monitor to monitor my oxygen levels at night. I do snore quite heavily, so he wanted to check if I had sleep apnea.

My levels dropped way below 90% (the lowest I saw was 83%) - should I be concerned? Does anyone else with TS snore badly at night?

[Lola]

Yes, you should be concerned, Gwen. Low oxygen saturations can worsen your fatigue, and can cause heart rhythm problems, mainly atrial fibrillation. The snoring could be from swelling of the naso pharyngeal tissues due to prednisone weight gain - yuk!

Perhaps you will need to use a machine at night, at least until things settle down.

[gwenllian111]

Intersting isn't it. The monitor kept flashing and beeping because the o2 had fallen so low. I also had lung function tests yesterday, and my lung capacity, and exchange of something was low. Will see what my doctor says when I see him. Maybe this explains the fatigue, like you said! Thanks for the reply x

[elephant]

I'm surprised you not in the hospital. Here in the states we would not let you go until your sats were stable. How about you numbness in your abdomen? I agree with Lola, heart arrhythmias are dangerous.

[Jack]

I have problems with maintaining a reasonable sat level because of lung damage. When I was recently in hospital, they were not at all happy unless I could get it above 92% even though this sometimes took a bit of deep breathing to get there. Below 90% is definitely a reason to be concerned.

[gwenllian111]

The hospital/doctors don't know yet, as it's the weekend and they've not received my sats monitor (it holds all the date for them to upload on their systems on Monday). It sure explains how exhausted i've been feeling though - falling asleep in a chair like a very old lady might. x

[Jack]

I make a point of falling asleep in the chair after lunch. I've just accepted it as something that suits me these days. If I don't have a short sleep during the day, I run out of energy by seven in the evening and just want to go to bed.

[Lola]

The hospital/doctors don't know yet, as it's the weekend and they've not received my sats monitor (it holds all the date for them to upload on their systems on Monday). It sure explains how exhausted i've been feeling though - falling asleep in a chair like a very old lady might. x

OK, so it sounds like you're doing home diagnostics. I am really glad you are having this taken care of. You're a tough one, Kiddo, but you need some help to heal.

[Sangye]

Wow, Gwenllian that's a very good thing to discover. You can really damage your heart, brain and other tissues by being oxygen-deprived every night. I'm glad to hear you're getting this looked at.

What happened with the numbness?

[JanW]

Gwen - I used to snore really badly before I had my SS fixed, and now I don't at all, so that definitely had everything to do with it.