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gpt5yesterday at 11:23 PM2 repliesview on HN

People should be more aware of the symptoms of sleep apneas - the lack of energy during the day, feeling tired, waking up throughout the night, waking up tired/exhausted, etc. People with untreated sleep apnea have multiple folds higher chances to be depressed, unemployed, and have trouble with basic life functions, in addition to the long term health consequences of depriving your brain from Oxygen.

I've suggested 4 people over the last couple of years to get tested based on them casually mentioning some of these symptoms, and all 4 got diagnosed with moderate to severe sleep apnea (which is classified by the number of times you stopped breathing every hour - AHI, and the blood oxygen level). Getting tested is easy and cheap - you can find kits for under $100 which essentially are just a monitor you attach your finger + a few ECG stickers on your body which you use for a couple of nights. You can order them online without talking to a doctor, and you will get a prescription for CPAP if you are diagnosed as positive.

Treatment with CPAP is highly effective in eliminating these symptoms, and also reversing the brain damage (although MRI scans shows that it takes around a year for the gray matter in your brain to restore itself).

The other suggestion I'd make is that if you are overweight or obese, GLP-1 has proven to be also a miracle drug for sleep apnea. Unlike the study mentioned above, that essentially reduced the average AHI of participants by 4, which for almost everyone wouldn't cure them. Drugs like Zepbound have shown that over half are cured from sleep apnea after roughly a year of use. This is in addition to the other health benefits they provide with the weight reduction. Essentially. This unfortunately won't work for everyone, as weight is not the only cause of sleep apnea, but it is by far the most common one.


Replies

patrickdaveytoday at 12:58 AM

I've tried a CPAP machine for 6 weeks and felt no different and gave up. I think I was a 6 on the scale. I wish it had worked though!

Currently I've just given up and embracing feeling relatively tired all the time. I've tried side sleeping devices (woody knows backpack) mandibular advancement splints etc.

So hard to tell (I find anyway) to get to a definitive answer

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anyfooyesterday at 11:52 PM

> People should be more aware of the symptoms of sleep apneas

I'm always a bit puzzled that this needs to be pointed out? I don't have sleep apnea per se, at least not chronically, but I've definitely had bouts of it due to allergy, sickness, stuff like that. The symptoms are the same because the mechanism is the same: I didn't get enough oxygen in the night.

It's always glaringly obvious to me the next day. I feel way more tired and exhausted than I normally would given the amount of sleep. I sometimes had instances of waking up gasping for air.

I really don't need to be told in those instances that there was an issue during the night. My sleep didn't sleep, of course there's something wrong and needs to be looked at?

Like, one time's a fluke, but if it happens a lot...

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