How do I know if my sleep apnea is cured?

And yes I know the obvious answer is to go to the Dr.

But I was dx with sleep apnea maybe 2 years ago (roughly) and have never been back to that Dr. He was a complete an utter ass. He made me bawl in that appt, just made me feel completely horrible about myself. And I have A LOT of Dr. appointments between oncologists, neurologists and pain management Dr's. So he was something special.

Anyway - so I know sleep apnea is a common thing to be cured by RNY but I wasn't sure how far from surgery that is that it could be cured or if that was dependent on weight and all that. I have mild sleep apnea so it wasn't severe but I do have severe insomnia and have been on sleeping meds for years. I'm hoping that once I'm much further out and more weight is off I can eventually get off of those too.

Thanks for any input!

I just tried sleeping without my mask, felt fine, and stopped using it.  However, I didn't try that until most of my weight was gone.  I could technically still be suffering from mild apnea since there are causes beyond obesity but I feel okay.

But yes, strictly speaking you should be retested.

That's a very dangerous idea and I am happy you mentioned that the op should get tested before doing what you may have and simply stopped using your cpap because you felt fine? 

Sleep apnea can be deadly. I had undiagnosed SA and had a cardiac arrest at home, its a less than 5% survival rate, but I did, well obviously. 

My point is, you cannot self diagnose whether you need your cpa*****t. You must go for sleep studies and have your chip in your machine looked at to see your patterns of sleep etc.

Not everyone gets off their cpap when they have had wls.

Annette 

EXACTLY what the above poster said. Going off CPAP because you "feel fine without it" when you haven't been retested is like stopping insulin because you "feel fine without it" even though you haven't been testing your blood sugar. I'll never understand why sleep apnea is the one life-threatening disease that people seem to view as though treating it is optional.

People of normal weight can have sleep apnea, so it is important to get another sleep study. Since the last doctor was a jackass, find another.

My doctor ordered a pulse oximetry study which measures oxygen levels while sleeping...it simply involved wearing a clip on the end of my finger at bedtime.  The study result was good, thus being given the medical okay to stop using a cpap machine.  I was so happy, I could have even kissed the utter-ass of the doctor you had :)

I started noticing that it felt like the air pressure in my mask was too much and almost choking me at times.  At the four month mark I went back to the doctor.   They didn't make me do a whole new test but they did send me home with what they called an auto pap.  I had to use that machine for five nights and then returned it to them to read the data.  As a result they dropped my pressure from a 14 to a 10 and I have to go back again in six months to do the same thing.

Another indicator was that my husband started complaining about me snoring again, even using my CPAP.  The doctor said that was along the lines of reverse apnea, where you get too much air or something like that.

I don't believe I am "cured" just yet, but only a few weeks after surgery it was clear that my pressure needed to be lowered because the air was blowing my mouth open while I was asleep and waking my husband up.  Once I lose a majority of the weight, I plan to go in for a new sleep study so I know exactly where I am at.

Sounds like we put our DH's through a lot.  Mine says it was first the noisy snoring, and now the extreme silence, that keeps him awake making sure I'm even still alive.  Me?  I'm already in Heaven...it's so great waking up in the morning feeling rested instead of exhausted.