My 8 yo son has always been a restless sleeper and is having some problems in school. A pediatric neurologist recently told me my son has nocturnal hypoventilation; he has elevated CO2 levels and holds his breath 1.5x/hr. The neurologist sent us to an ear, nose and throat doctor who examined my son and reviewed an x-ray we had done. He said my son's adenoids and tonsils are fine and should not be presenting any type of problem. This is pretty much what the neurologist expected. I am currently waiting to hear back from the neurologist about what the ear,nose and throat doc said. From what I have read here, this does not sound too serious. So here is my question - is this something I should persue a little more or would I be making a mountain out of a mole hill? I should explain that I am a little "gunshy" about what docs tell me. My son had complained briefly of "fuzzy" vision out of one eye - his pediatrician checked it out and said he couldn't find a problem and my son didn't complain anymore so I let it go. The school nurse did a routine eye exam on him 2 weeks ago and sent a note home saying he had 20/200 vision in the eye the pediatrician said was fine this past November. The eye doc I took him to last week confirmed the 20/200 diagnosis and is now worried about permanent blindness in the eye! Any thoughts on the nocturnal hypoventilation would be helpful. Thank you.

hypoventilation causes an increased concentration of carbon dioxide because there is not enough flow to exhale that carbon dioxide produced by breathing.  It is essentially slowed down breathing.  It can occur during sleep because muscle tone decreases as we go into deeper stages of sleep.  

My question to you is this:

How does the neurologist know your son stops breathing once per night?  Has he had a sleep study?  

If it is truly 1.5x per hour, then this is relatively mild, but it could be happening more than this if a sleep study has not been done to verify this estimation.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, he has had a sleep study done and the pediatric neurololgist is the one who first relayed the results to me citing the hypoventilation and elevated carbon dioxide levels. The neurologist would like to do a follow up in a few months and possibly a second sleep study. Because of the problems with my son's eye, as I mentioned in the original post, my tendency would be to pursue this further. I was on the fence about going forward - after the sleep study and subsequent appointments with/for neurologist, x-rays & ear, nose & throat doc, not to mention getting a new pediatrician, both my son and I are tired of going to docs. But at this point I have decided to proceed as the neurologist has suggested and that it is better to be safe than sorry (as with the eye). The only remaining concern I have is whether this could be indicative of a larger or different problem that the docs are not considering. I have no reason to believe there is, but I didn't think anything was wrong with my son's eye after his original pediatrician checked it out. Thanks again.