Don’t you have to be asleep in order to experience apnea?
My husband has it and, before CPAP, would drop off at the drop of a hat and never know it.
Most people have warning signs that they are becoming sleepy, he was so sleep deprived that he would not have any warning signals.
Thank goodness he never did that while driving.
maybe they mean narcolipsy (not sure i spelled correctly) where you can fall asleep unexpectedly?
Technically speaking, people with sleep apnea never really achieve restorative sleep.
Sleep apnea is a common disorder in which you have one or more pauses in breathing or shallow breaths while you sleep. Breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to minutes. They may occur 30 times or more an hour. Sleep apnea is typically associated with loud snoring or choking sounds. Not everyone who snores as sleep apnea, but everyone who has sleep apnea snores and/or makes "choking" noises while they sleep.
In my case, I was diagnosed after mentally blacking out (but appearing physically awake and functional) while driving my son and family to a college visit 18 months ago now. I mentally "blacked out" for some 20 minutes while driving, yet carried on a conversation with my then wife at the time and appeared awake.
I suddenly "came to" and asked when we passed a specific point on our trip, to which the wife (at the time..) said "twenty minutes ago." Realizing I'd experienced a mental lapse, I pulled over and we changed drivers immediately.
A week later I was having a sleep study performed and learned I woke up 84 times an hour while choking. I saw the video of it too. It was pretty horrific. I had no idea. Technically speaking, I never really "slept."
Been on a cpap machine for the last @18 months now and I feel better, better mental concentration and I eat alot less and lost a pretty good chunk of weight. One of the common side effects of sleep apnea is weight gain. People with sleep apnea tend to eat 30% more calories/day than people without it due to trying to keep energy levels up during the day and being "too tired" to exercise. I've lost 35 pounds.