I am new to this Forum from Scottsdale, AZ. My question is sometimes I wake up at 1 am finding myself confused and can't control my thoughts I have to keep moving around like a Panic Attack which leads me to driving around with my wife for about an hour to calm down. I am being told it is my Sleep Apnea causing this by my ENT. Anybody else going thru this same situation? I feel it is something more than Sleep Apnea problems. I do not see anybody else discussing my situation that is why I wonder if there is something else that could be the problem. Just had complete blood work done plus a Bone Marrow Biopsy with all positive results.
For your ENT to write off what you are experiencing as sleep apnea related is not very professional. I don't think your issues are consistent with a sleep apnea problem at all and although I don't know what to tell you as far as moving forward, I will tell you that you need to stick with your primary care physician to explore all avenues of medical expertise. You have probably already started down this path and I urge you to stay on it till you get it figured out.
Very few professionals haunt this or any sleep apnea forum. The ones who do tend to be dentists and out of professional courtesy may not want to contradict another doctor in a somewhat related field. The amateurs who come here generally do so when first diagnosed or are just starting therapy looking for answers and seldom stick around to try and help folks. Keep in mind that medical specialists tend to see problems, symptoms and such through the prism of their own specialty and get tunnel vision so can't really look to alternatives as well as they should. Just human nature so best you be the captain of your own situation. Try and find out as much as you can as there are others out there who have written about the same symptoms you are having. Good luck!
I have had similar problems with headache, brain fog, and high adrenaline panic feeling with wake up after 3 or 4 house sleep with CPAP.. Just got a new DreamStation hoping the newer features might help. Not. Maybe worse. There is input on the machine for type of mask, permitting only selection of only Resipironics masks . I have been using ResMed F20 , like it a lot and wish to continue. DME supplier had no clue about what to do. I had done googling .. and the symptoms very closely align with too much CO2 in system. Is it possible that a mismatch between machine and mask it causing CO2 retention to create these effects? Or that the back pressure on "breathe out" is set too high? Here is link describing CO2 effects in blood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia
I have sleep apnea and I am also diabetic. I can wake up and be totally confused due to having a hypo (low blood sugar). Generally in the first few moments I don't even know how to switch off the CPAP machine and can be clawing at the mask. I always eventually remember and then get up and have some milk (or something similar) and my blood sugar levels return to normal. Not a very pleasant experience but can happen to all diabetics when there blood sugar levels go too low.
ModestCoffeeIbis7490 WROTE:"> I am new to this Forum from Scottsdale, AZ. My question is sometimes I wake up at 1 am finding myself confused and can't control my thoughts I have to keep moving around like a Panic Attack which leads me to driving around with my wife for about an hour to calm down. I am being told it is my Sleep Apnea causing this by my ENT. Anybody else going thru this same situation? I feel it is something more than Sleep Apnea problems. I do not see anybody else discussing my situation that is why I wonder if there is something else that could be the problem. Just had complete blood work done plus a Bone Marrow Biopsy with all positive results.> "
I don't know what is going on with your doctors, the Sleep Care Doctor should be addressing this or you own GP. If this has just started around the time of you developing Sleep Apnea, it might be related or might not be. However, what I would do is buy yourself an Oxygen Saturation Monitor, one that can store or print out your o2 levels and see what that shows during the night and when you wake up in a panic. It may be just anxiety due to having a make and air being pushed into your lungs, but it may be due to a low level of oxygen. Your sleep clinic might be able to loan you one, but they tend to be large machines on stands. These are sold on Amazon and eBay for around £30 $40 or slightly higher and as long as they store the readings or print it out you can then take that along to the Sleep Doctor. Your readings should stay in the 90s, hopefully mid 90s, though some people will drop just into the 80s if they have lung problems etc, but it should go no lower when asleep. It will be lower than through the day. You want an o2 monitor that will record your levels during the night either all the time or at random.
If your o2 levels are ok, you will need to look for another cause for your panic attacks. It is not normal for people to have panic attacks when using cpap for a while, though at the start of using the machine one can wake up in a panic. However, after the brain works out you are attached to a cpap machine and the mask is removed, most people settle down very quickly. After a while of use very few people panic when waking up, they just get used to it. I have read just lately of people with low o2 levels waking in a bit of a panic, but so far it appears to be central apneas that have been causing o2 starvation. If you find you are low in o2 (Oxygen) during the night, you might need a more complicated machine, or just your settings adjusted, however, you might need another sleep study to find out what is going on, this will need to be at a Sleep Clinic in a hospital and not a study done at home.
If you find your o2 levels are ok, then you will have to look for another cause.
