Question:
Does one's sleep apnea get worse if you're extremely tired?

I am scheduled for a sleep study, (daytime fatigue, snoring, dry mouth, headaches in the morning) and my insurance company apparently requires a certain "level" of severity for sleep apnea. I'm wondering, is one's sleep anea ever worse when one is extremely tired? In battling my insurance, I'm to the point where I might just stay up the night before to insure that I'll be REALLLY fatigued when I go in for my sleep study, if this will help me have a "severe" enough level of sleep apnea? Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks!!    — Carly H. (posted on September 8, 2003)

September 8, 2003
I assume you are quoting your insurance company in relation to approval for WLS. Personally I would not mess around with your test as who knows if it backfires on you. You don't want to end up diagnosed with something you do not have. I'm not even sure being real fatigued will make things worse. You may end up very surprised how bad it is all by itself. I did not think I had it and I came up as a moderate/severe and ended up on bipap settings of 22/18, which are very high.
   — zoedogcbr

September 8, 2003
I don't think it would matter. If you have it, it will show up when you're asleep, but I don't think the severity will be affected by how tired you are. It may still be helpful to be tired though as you'll have to fall asleep in a strange room in a strange bed with glue in your hair and electodes all over while someone watches over you via a hidden camera. What a treat.
   — mom2jtx3

September 8, 2003
Unfortunately, it won't be that easy. I have sleep apnea and if I'm really tired I'm more anxious. And the more anxious and wanting to go to sleep I am the harder it is to actually sleep. I wouldn't do anything different before your test. Best wishes.
   — ethoms

September 8, 2003
How tired you are does not truly affect your apena episodes. You get more tired if you have a more severe form of sleep apnea. You actually stop breathing, thereby causing an oxygen narcosis in the blood stream, and in my case, the severe headache that results from this oxyhen starvation would wake me up, due to the lack of oxygen. One never really gets and 'deep' or REM sleep when you have sleep apnea. The machine allows you to develop a true deep sleep, and in the course of becoming used to it, allows you to sleep much deeper, allowing you to wake up more and more refreshed. The way my pulmonary phsyician stated it was that the trachea has a piece of 'evolutionary tissue' that flaps down in the throat. Many many eons ago, presumably, it's function was to keep water from entering the airway. That's why surgery for apnea is not really effective. It can be cut out, but being evolutionary tissue, it will more than likely grow back, and probably thicker and more scarified, leading to more problems. The only real cure is weight loss, which in turn leads to a larger opening of the air passages, and the less you weigh, the less the lungs have to work to keep you breathing. Just do the tests normally, you wouldn't want to mess up something that dosen't need fixing.
   — track

September 8, 2003
It doesn't matter how tired you are, you either have it or you don't, it shows up through all the electrodes they hook up to your brain.
   — Saxbyd

September 9, 2003
I never even knew what sleep apnea was until I had to go for testing as an insurance requirement. I had a 4, which is one of the lower settings, but I stop breathing alot more now and im tired all the time. I fall asleep after sitting down for 5 minutes, it's getting really bad! I almost got into a car accident a few days ago for falling asleep at the wheel. I am going back in for another test to see whats going on, I lost all the energy:o( You just go and let the Doctors do the rest. Good luck!
   — Sandy M.