My Life and Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea and the way it affects your breathing causes more trouble than just keeping you awake at night. It causes problems that you may not have even considered such as GI tract conditions . What are the GI tract conditions? Here are just a few of them… Acid reflux is common among those who have sleep apnea. The acid in your stomach comes up on you while you are lying down. Luckily there is medication to take to help with acid reflux. I have had it for years and it can be miserable.   There are different types of hiatal hernias. A hiatal hernia is when part of the stomach goes up through the hole in the diaphragm and this can be very painful. In my case it feels like my stomach is shifting to one side. Hiatal hernias are quite common and they can be controlled by changing your eating habits and the way you exercise and the position that you sleep in.  GERD is Gastroesophageal reflux disorder where the lining of the esophagus is irritated by acid reflux. If...

If you have read any of my past posts then you know that my father also had sleep apnea . His snoring would be loud one minute and then it would abruptly cut off. My snoring is similar. But one thing that Dad did that I don’t do that much of is cough , especially in the morning. As I can remember my Father didn’t have asthma, or any other type of illness that would make him cough. He didn’t smoke or drink. He did have heart disease and his blood circulation was weak but I don’t think that had anything to do with his coughing. Of course back then no one ever spoke of sleep apnea, so that wasn’t considered a reason for his coughing. From what I have read others have experienced coughing and choking along with their sleep apnea. I can certainly understand that when you are trying to gasp for air in the middle of the night! One possible reason for the coughing is that the throat is sore which makes sense because after a particularly bad night of trying to sleep my throat is very sore...