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