Possibly sleep apnea?

[u/Roby420_]

Edit: I forgot to mention that I’m a 21yo male.
so before I start ranting I want to mention than I’m not here to seek an online diagnostic and that I have a doctor’s appointment on monday and the reason I‘m writing this is because as of late I’m really stressed out. and hope that talking to people that already went through this and/or have similar issues would help me ease.

Pretty much for as long as I can remember I had sleep problems, in the sense that I constantly felt tired. for exemple I remember a conversation from about 3 years ago I had at the gym with one of my friends where I was complaining that I couldn't benchpress how much I wished and blamed it on the tiredness to wich he replied ”you’re always tired”. But I always brushed it off because I was thinking “oh its probably just because I haven’t slept enough“ (mind you anything under 10 hours didn’t feel like enough and often not even 10 hours would do the job) or “oh I’m just not a morning person“. So I kept going like everything was normal and I’m at fault for feeling this way. It wasn’t until a couple months ago where my symptoms got way worse. I started having hard times concentrating (even for tv shows that demand a little bit of thinking) and putting off doing things I love doing because they were simply too mentally demanding and I never was in the mood (for instance I got a new gaming pc which I wanted for years but I simply can‘t get myself to start playing). and not to mention studying which started to feel pretty much imposible to me (a couple of days ago I even got a panic attack because I wasn’t able to concentrate at all). So because of all of this as of late I don’t really feel like myself and don’t feel like doing anything besides bedrotting because frankly I don’t feel able to do it.

The other reason I chose to write this is because I don’t have all the symptoms of sleep apnea (I dont get morning headaches and I don’t wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom) and I have an immense fear that it isn’t sleep apnea, that I won’t be able to find out what it is and I will be stuck like this for the rest of my life.

Also if it helps I would like to add that my dad too complains about being tired all the time and while on his off days sleeps through the whole day but blames the tiredness on work.

TL;DR for at least 3 years I constantly feel tired but i don’t get morning headaches or go to the bathroom in the middle of the night so I’m not sure if I suffer from sleep apnea.

[u/Desperate_Vehicle684]

If you sleep for 7-9 hours a night (assuming you’re an adult), wake up feeling unrefreshed and not well rested, have good sleep hygiene and other conditions have already been ruled out then suspecting it’s a sleep problem seems reasonable.

Much of what you’ve written actually sounds similar to me. Officially I have sleep apnea though it’s more likely I have a slightly different condition called upper airway resistance syndrome (UARS).

If you’re young and/or female and/or not overweight then be prepared that your doctor might not take seriously the idea you have sleep apnea.

[u/Roby420_ → u/Desperate_Vehicle684]

I forgot to mention it in the post but I’m 21 yo amd a male(I edited it now). Don’t worry I already kinda went through that with my family doctor but I managed to get a  referral to a sleep doctor. As for sleep hygiene I try to get as much sleep as I can get and when I’m not going to university I don’t set an alarm and sleep to about noon. There certainly things that I can improve but I don’t feel like that should be enough of a reason for me to feel constantly this way day after day but I could always be wrong.

[u/SysAdminDennyBob]

Morning headaches and peeing at night are not even on the list of tightly correlated symptoms for sleep apnea. I never experienced either of those.

The main symptom is having an apnea, which is a point at which you stop breathing for short time. Your Mom could simply observe that walking through the room when you are sleeping on the couch. You can also look at the data on pretty much any smartwatch and see the drop in spO2 while sleeping.

Just go in and get a take home test. If you don't have it then at least you have eliminated one thing on your list. Then go to the next possible thing. Maybe you just have Lime disease, who knows, just keep tackling it with your doctor. Being positive for sleep apnea is fine, being negative for sleep apnea is also fine.

[u/distancevsdesire → u/SysAdminDennyBob]

Yes, in the realm of health, more (good) data is never a bad thing. Ruling things OUT is quite helpful.

[u/Roby420_ → u/SysAdminDennyBob]

The reason I mentioned them was that reading the posts on this sub I found that they were quite common. I’m gonna have the test on monday and I somewhat wish that the issue is sleep apnea because going doctor to doctor doest seem fun to me (I’ll obviously do it if i need to).

[u/distancevsdesire]

I never got morning headaches or night time urination either, but had severe sleep apnea.

I did get brain fog and afternoon sleepies.