About my husband - is he healthy or does he has sleep apnea?

by Dee bosgraaf
(casselberry fla)

Hi, my husband is 6"2 250ish and is 42 years old, smokes almost 2 packs a day and needs pain medications from a back injury and even after all that the doctors says all in all he is pretty healthy (scary right)!

Every night he scares me because he stops breathing at least 3 to 5 times a night every night. He will pass out very quickly at night and snore like a dragon then just stop. I've counted the seconds and sometimes its over 90 seconds then i have to shake him ruff to get him on his side.

This continues very very often and im afraid if i sleep threw it and dont wake him up .....well im scared and dont know how to handle this.please help...thank you

Answer


With over 90 seconds of non-breathing and with snoring sound, it seems your husband has obstructive sleep apnea.

As I read through your story, I understand that turning him on the side may help him breathing more easily while sleeping. This can be an encouraging thing, because many people have positional sleep apnea and find relief without using a CPAP machine.

Sleeping on the side can help even the patients with moderate positional apnea. However, the question is how to keep that person sleeping on the side, without turning around?

There are many tips for this, and I hope the information from positional sleep apnea therapy can help your husband sleep better.

It could be a problem if your husband will refuse to do anything, considering the "healthy" attribute that he received from his doctor. I suggest to video record his sleep and show him the proof. Try to make a quality video, to impress him.

See here some video examples of people with sleep apnea filmed by their partners.

In fact, let's do something better! Why not showing this video (that you will take with your husband having apnea episodes) to his doctor? I bet he will make an appointment for a sleep study.

Yeah, you're right! It's scary if a doctor says that a patient like your husband is perfectly healthy. It seems that you are the real angel who protects his sleep.

I hope it helps. Don't be afraid to comment back.

Remy Thierry
Founder of Sleep Apnea Guide

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