This post is in regards to my fiancee, who has severe sleeping problems.  I've read over some of the posts in this forum and the information on this site, but am not sure if she has sleep apnea or some other rarer sleeping problem, due to the large amounts of strange things that happen when she sleeps.  I'm going to go ahead and post her symptoms, and then ask some questions, if anyone could help me It would be appreciated.  I know a lot of these don't fall under the realm of sleep apnea at all, I"m pretty much trying to figure out if she has both sleep apnea and other sleeping disorders, or if it is based on psychological problems.

- We'll lay down, she'll have just closed her eyes, and I'll be talking to her, and she'll have said something maybe 1, 2 minutes ago.  Suddenly she doesn't respond to a question of mine.  I like to call these miniature comas.  Sometimes she can be woken up, sometimes not.  It seems like she has a certain amount of time that she has to do this, and then she snaps out of it, because even when I can wake her up, sometimes she falls immediately back asleep.  Deep Bass noises such as a Loud door slamming always wakes her up.  Sometimes, I can drip freezing water on her body and she won't wake up.  

-  In relation to this, she sleepwalks and sleeptalks, mostly while she is in this state.  I would say that the above (not being able to wake up) is related to sleepwalking, but I've never heard of people who sleepwalk instantaneously falling asleep like that.  I can be laying next to her one minute, and the next she'll have fallen asleep in the snap of a finger and immediately begin trying to get up and walk around while asleep, or start talking to me.  I always awake when she starts to get up, so I've never let her get too far, but she lives far away and I don't always sleep with her.  Her grandmother will gets up in the middle of the night and she'll just be prone in front of the bathroom, or standing silently (thank god this doesn't happen to me or I'd probably freak out and club her with something).  

-  Down to the reason I'm posting in this forum.  This happens rarely, but when it does, it is very severe.  She fell into one of her miniature comas last night, it lasted 1.5 hours.  I've never observed it to last this long, but then again I usually fall asleep.  she was supposed to be somewhere so i was awake the whole time trying to wake her up.  When she did wake up, She was gasping for air, she couldn't breath at all, and her heart was hurting very badly.  She said it felt like her breath had just stopped.  It seems her breath stopping was what woke her up.  This does not happen often, maybe once every two weeks.  It has only happened twice when I am sleeping with her, it appears to happen less when she is with me.  She also says that it used to happen a lot more when she was very young.  

-  She is 25 years old, and is overweight.  4"11" and 235lbs.  As for a thick neck, I don't know, possibly slightly thick, I haven't made a study of necks though :).  She used to be normal weight when she was younger, she has only been heavy since she was 18.  

-  She works very hard, 5, sometimes 6 days a week for 10 hours at a time.  She never complains of being overly sleepy, at times I have thought her to have imsomnia, as she can stay awake and alert on 4 hours of sleep a day.  Since she started the new job doing 55-60 hours a week she has been sleepier, but no more so than you would expect from someone working that much.  She now gets about 6-8 hours per night.  

-Sleeping by herself is entirely different than sleeping with me.  When she sleeps alone, she complains of waking up every hour or so consistently, and can't sleep for more than 8 hours.  When she sleeps with me, she's like a log.  She falls into a deep sleep and doesn't wake up from noise, and can sleep straight with no interruption for up to 12 hours(Basically she'll sleep for as long as I will, and I sleep a lot).   She still wakes up gasping while sleeping with me, however.  This only happens once every two weeks approx.  Whether she's sleeping with me or not.

-  She has very severe thyroid gland problems.  Apparently it is so bad that the doctor said if she had let it go for another couple of months she would have developed severe thyroid cancer and died.  She takes Synthroid regularily for this.  This problem developed 3 years ago.

-  Her heart beats irregularily, this is while awake, not just while sleeping.  This has developed recently.  I believe that this is related to her thyroid problem, as it started up around the same time as that.  She even said the doctor said that she believed she was responsible for causing the heart problem by putting her on too much synthroid medication to start with.  I don't know if the heart problem is being caused by her continuing to take sythnthroid, or if she were to stop the medication it would resume beating normally.  She was supposed to go the hospital to get a heart monitor attached but never went.  Her heart "acts up" from time to time, this can happen at any time during the day.  Extreme pain will start coming from her heart, and it will start beating erraticaly and fast.  Laying her on her back and giving her water will cause it to subside after a while.  These heart problems can come from nothing, or they can come from very loud Bass.  Twice in a movie theater we had to leave because the Bass was so loud it was making her heart hurt, and once during a concert.  The reason I list this in her symptoms is when she wakes up gasping it usually leads to her having a heart thing.

-  She has never been to a sleep doctor or done a nightly test.  And I know that she'll never, ever, wear a sleeping mask, she'd rather die in her sleep than wear a sleeping mask, I'm dead serious.  I'm going to try and get her to do the nightly sleeping test, but that will be a struggle.  She just doesn't seem to realize the seriousness of these problems.  

-  She suffers from depression and a host of other problems.  Sometimes I think she has a personality disorder.  She was an alchoholic for 4 years before I met her, when I met her she had just gotten off of it.  She smokes very lightly now, but used to be a heavy smoker.  Between the ages of 8 and 15, she was exposed to a lot of drugs, including cocaine, acid, most everything but heroin.  She was addicted to cocaine between the ages of 12 and 15.  She's completely off of everything but cigarettes now and does not express a desire to return to anything.  In other words she's not fighting cravings or anything.

There is more, believe it or not, but I don't want to make this post so long that it is unreadable.  My pure guess is that she has sleep apnea, combined with Sleepwalking and some type of personality/psychological disorder.

1.  My main question is, does she exhibit sleep apnea, or does it look like the waking up and gasping is being caused by her other problems?  

2.  How do you die from sleep apnea?  Do you just stop breathing and not wake up?  Do they start thrashing for lack of air and die of suffocation?

3.  Are there other methods for treating apnea than the mask?  Medication is something she would likely be willing to do, but as I said, she'll never wear that mask.  

4.  I know that she has more than sleep apnea.  Should I take her in for the sleeping test first or take her in to a regular doctor to investigate her synthroid/heart problem? Which is more pressing would you think?  

Thank you for your time, and for reading this lengthy post.  any help would be appreciated.

This is the original poster, I decided to register.

in response to your question about taking her for a sleep test, I would say deffinatly! As to if she has sleep apnea, it seems she is showing some of the symptoms, but only the sleep test will show if she has it or not. But it sounds like something is going on!
Forsure get her to do the test! Only good can come of it!
Keep us posted on how she is doing!

Hello mryay:
This situation is quite beyond the ability of this forum.  I think you should present this entire situation to a good internal medicine physician.  And unfortunately, given the statistics concerning drug abuse, and some personal observations I had while working in a Methadone clinic, the possibility of a return to drug abuse is very high, meaning that this could be a drug overdose we're talking about here.  Unresponsiveness of the nature you describe is a 911 call.  Yes, it may prove to be an underlying sleep disorder, but I would not risk not exhausting every possibility to insure her safety.  Good luck.
sleepydave

She has so much going on you probably need to see specialists across several different disciplines.  But I do want to clear up two normal  misconceptions you have.  First, you can't guess apnea on body type.  Many thin people have severe apnea, it is due to internal structure.  Second, there are no pills that cure obstructive sleep apnea and surgery is very painful with a very high failure rate.  Therefore, Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) is the first line of therapy for Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA).  However, there are many kinds of masks and many kinds of interfaces that are not masks and much more open, so don't discount treatment because of a mask issue.

OSA kill by increase the risk of heart attack and stroke due to prolonged increases in blood pressure over time, increased weight and car accidents.   It doesn't kill in the way I believe you are thinking.  It is my feeling that, while she may have apnea, there are other equally pressing concerns.

Vicki

yes dear, please get her tests done before its too late. ask a doctor for a good medication and then see if it improves her sleep disorders. ! My sister too was suffering from OSA and she would feel dull and miserable all the same. We checked her Blood pressure and glucose levels but surprisingly they were all ok. Finally, we got her tests done and she was diagnosed with sleep apnea.  Then the doctor put her on provigil and she showed tremendous improvement. Though it did not fully cure her but it surely tried to keep her awake during the day. It does work like a wonder drug.It helps sufferers to keep awake during the day so that they dont meet with accidents.Maybe you can try this and see if it helps you..We are all with you.