To Angela.....I am sooo glad to see a parent on here active in her child's diagnosis early on!!! And getting your kids the treatment needed at an early age is so important......I have a feeling that there are so many thousands of undiagnosed children out there, because, think about it, OSA is relatively a "new" disease!! The medical community has only fairly recently been researching and treating it!!! I don't believe that alot of doctors realize that OSA even begins at birth, at least the majority of them anyway. I am POSITIVE I was born with it.....it runs in my family on my dad's side. I only found out that I had it about 8 years ago!!! I am 61!! My boyfriend was trying to get me to start breathing again while I was sleeping one night.......and so it began......my sleep studies showed I stopped breathing over 200 times per hour, which meant severe OSA. A bunch of relatives on my dad's side have had it. We all look similar.....it may be 'structural' in nature, I'm thinking. That sounds like an odd way to put it, but that's what I'm thinking. My dad had it, but he was severely claustrophobic, so he wouldn't wear his CPAP mask at all. Too bad. I have worn mine religiously since being diagnosed, and have been through several sleep studies, and have ended up on a BiPap with a setting of 18/13, and I am still not getting good sleep at all. They tell me that my apneas have stopped at this setting, but I still have poor quality sleep and also suffer from serious imsomnia streaks. I am convinced that my OSA is congenital, i.e., I was born with it, as it explains alot of things throughout my life, such as falling asleep in school all my life, falling asleep on the job all my life, learning disabilities, high blood pressure diagnosis, diabetes diagnosis, etc, etc......all these things can be attributed to undiagnosed OSA. Which is why it is soooo important for parents to have their children diagnosed early if they are showing symptoms like tiredness, snoring, learning disabilities, etc. Angela, I am so proud of you for being such a good parent!! <3
