Why the focus on Sleep Apnea?

Can someone please help me understand why there is such a focus on Sleep Apnea for this particular type of surgery?

Sleep Apnea is one of the significant co-morbidities of Morbid Obesity. Because it means you stop breathing while sleeping, creating oxygen deprivation. It causes fatigue during day, which makes one less likely to exercise or do other helathy activities. It leads to napping, causing further sleep disturbances. It can lead to or be associated with Depression because of the continual oxygen deprivation & exhaustion. Snoring is a symtom associated with it and can be very irritating to anyone else in the household. It is one of the co-morbidities that insurnace companies accept when deciding to to cover surgery or not. And if left untreated, since one stops breathing while sleeping, might it can cause death? I don't know.

Some people have had complications and even died due to not being diagnosed with Sleep Apnea before WLS and that's why WL surgeons demand a sleep study test and then you must use your CPAP before Surgery for a length of time. My surgeon says two weeks of being on the CPAP machine before he'll do surgery. You have to understand that WLS is MAJOR surgery and can affect a number of things, including your breathing if you have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea effects your heart and oxygen level.

I asked my nutritionist this because I said I'd never heard of anyone dying of it. She said "Ever hear of stroke, heart attack? In the old days, we called this 'dying in your sleep'. Now we know it's caused by sleep apnea."

Just to give you a idea of the problem. i have a apnea episode 120 time in an hour and 3 to 4 of those times I go code blue. For anyone that sleep apnea and has surgery there is a geat risk of death because of the pain meds, your brains does not always remember to breath

Hi Carol! Just wanted to give you the information that I have gotten about Sleep Apnea so far. I had my first sleep study done on 7/27/04..during that study I had 8 full episodes of apnea (where you completely quit breathing) and I had 237 episodes of hypopnea (where you have a 50% or less inhalation/exhalation of air). One of the episodes of apnea I stopped breathing for 38 seconds, that is a very long time. My oxygen saturation went down to 77%..that is very low. This can cause all types of disorders, your body is not releasing toxic amounts of carbon dioxide which in turn causes you to have headaches, you have excessive daytime sleepiness, it is very dangerous to drive with this condition without being treated. When I went in for my second study with the CPAP on 8/28/04 there was a lady in there at the same time I was. She told me that she had a heart attack in December 03 and then learned that she had double breast cancer in April 04. Her doctors related all of these diseases directly to her sleep apnea. Patients with apnea never go into REM sleep and rarely go into stage 3/4 sleep which are the stages when the brain recouperates the body from daily stress and fatigue. If you don't go into these stages, your body doesn't rejuvenate and your mind either. Please hang in there and pray that you don't have apnea. It is really a lifelong problem (however, it usually goes away with signifigant weight loss). I will be thinking of you and sending a prayer your way. Take care!!! Memory Barnhill