Waking up gasping for air

Hello I am a 31 year old male with no previous medical history.

Over the past six months I have developed sleep apnea which has gotten progressively more acute. My symptoms are suddenly waking up gasping for air, sometimes I find my vision blurring and the sensation that blood isn't reaching my fingers. This is gotten steadily more acute for the last month, to the point, where I have episodes almost every night.

In addition I seem to have trouble with shortness of breath during the day time as well. I will just be sitting around watching television and suddenly feel like I am not getting enough air. I have also noticed trouble swallowing food (like a constriction/obstruction in the upper part of my throath).

I have been feeling something like a palpitation in my chest over the last week. It seems to get stronger when I eat, otherwise I notice a disturbance once every couple of minutes or so.

I am currently seeing a doctor and have undergone an overnight sleep apnea test, waiting on the result of that.

Any help with my symptoms would be greatly appreciated, I have been worried that I have cardiac problems, I went in to the urgent care center today and had an EKG done, which came back normal. Do my symptoms stand out? would it be wise to head to the emergency center?

I am not a doctor, so I can only speculate. I had similar symptoms in the past (i.e., shortness of breath, palpitations of the heart, etc.) and found I had AFIB. Initial EKG was negative, but symptoms continued on and off. Doctor told me to come in immediately when I had symptoms and he would give me another EKG. One day when walking my dog at the park the symptoms returned. I went straight to my doctor and EKG confirmed AFIB. If you have Paroxysmal AFIB (off and on), it may not show up on a single EKG. Normally they will give you and event monitor to wear for a week to record events as they happen. I also found that I had sleep apnea, which is often the case with AFIB sufferers. I eventually had an ablation and have been AFIB free for over 5 years now and have been doing CPAP therapy and lately, using oral appliance to keep sleep apnea and AFIB at bay. Hopefully, this is not your problem, as I would not wish it on anyone. Good luck on finding the cause of your problems.

In the most strongest sense I would tell you to run, not walk to a cardiologist and have a stress test done and probably an echo cardiogram...I had virtually identical symptoms and while I am 63, I had these symptoms for a while...I had 65/75% blockage in all 4 of the main arteries/veins to/from the heart especially the one called the "widow maker"...I ended up having a quad bypass surgery and now on cpap therapy...this is the best thing to ever happen to me...your body is trying tell you something...LISTEN!!!!!!!!!!!

Madjack

P.S. I had, had a couple of EKG's at my family Drs and they showed nothing...it took a stress test and echo cardiogram (they go together) at the cardiologists...this resulted in a heart cath which showed the blockages...scared the bejeezus out of me.......mj

P.P.S. I hope you have insurance as none of this is cheap But, it will save your life...what is that worth..............mj