My son is 6 and over the last year I have been questioning his sleep. He is a very noisy breather, snores, tosses and turns, retracts his chest, flares his nostrils, etc. His ped. just suggests he needs better sleep habits, but I am not sure of that. I really think he has a problem. His behavior during the day is affected and the poor thing is exhausted all day, sometimes napping, usually falling asleep in the car whenever we go anywhere.
He had reflux as a baby, as well as multiple sets of ear tubes for chronic fluid in his ears. He also had his adenoids removed, but apparently they have grown back. The Dr. says that his tonsils are not enlarged so he doesn't seem too interested. I am at a loss. Is it possible he still has apnea without the enlarged tonsils?
Thank you so much.

I have 59 years on your little guy and still have my tonsils. In fact, I've never (knock, Knock, KNOCK) had a tonsil problem, no tonsilitis, etc.. But I do have sleep apnea.

They are not easy to find, perhaps a large teaching hospital near you, but I would suggest you try to find a sleep lab that has a pediatric specialist.

Good luck and God bless!


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Some people are like Slinkies... Not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.
Resmed VPAP Auto. Humidaire 3i, Simplicity & Micro masks, ResScan 3.4, S8 ResLink, Embla oximeter.

Yup.....a child can have apnea (quite severe infact) without having enlarged tonsils.  My 7yo DD had her adenoids removed because they were completely blocking her airway.  Her tonsils were not removed because they have never been enlarged and were not a part of the apnea problem.  Prior to surgery for the adenoids she was having between 28 breathing events/hour and after surgery it was 8 events/hour (I just call them breathing events because she has central apnea, obstructive apnea, mixed apnea and hypopneas but they are all breathing related issues).  

My suggestion would be to find another doctor who will take your concerns seriously.  Apnea in children can have many causes/contributing factors above and beyond tonsils.  Your son really needs to have a sleep study done (by people who do a lot of children to minimize tech error) to find out if this is indeed his problem.  My DD also had RLS/PLMD which were also interfering with her ability to sleep above and beyond the low oxygen levels and lack of adequate sleep.  A sleep study would also find out about any possible PLMD (Yes kids get these adult things as well, but the majority of kids don't).

Susanne and my mini-hosehead Chris -- apnea/rls/plmd/asthma/relfux/food allergies -- loving her cpap but tried to get out of using it tonight.....

My daughter is almost 3 and although our Sleep Specialist is convinced that a T & A will be helpful because any extra space in her very small airways will be helpful, two ENTs have refused surgery because both her Tonsils and Adenoids are very small.  She still has obstructive sleep apnea so both ENTs think it's due to her neurological issues (she has cerebral palsy with low tone in her neck).

HTH

Erin


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Erin
Mom to 3 children 4 and under!! including a sweet 2 year old who has chronic kidney failure with severe cystic encephalomalacia, cortically blind, mixed cerebral palsy, severe global delays, Sleep Apnea, possible RLS, reflux, G tube

My daughter is eight. She had her tonsils and adnoids removed at age five. She is currently on CPAP. I would seek a second opinion. So many DR's do not seem to take this issue seriously.


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Heather-Mom to Hannah(8-hose head) and Logan(4), wife to Paul (also a hose head)

Hi, I'm new. I don't know too much about OSA, my son was just diagnosed today. In fact, I just posted for the first time on this forum a minute ago.  I mentioned how I wish I would have pushed for better answers from the doctors sooner.

My son does have large tonsils, but he didn't snore until pretty recently. It sounds like apnea can be pretty different from one person to the next. Before I noticed the snoring, I told his doctors over and over that he had dark circles under his eyes all the time and that he was always tired. It really wasn't taken seriously.

If you suspect something is going on with his sleep, be persistent with the doctors. One thing that really helped me get my point across to the ENT was by showing him a video tape of my son sleeping.

Hope this helps.

I wish I'd found this site months ago! My daughter has been having 'behavior' problems for several years (she's turning 8 in a couple weeks) and my husband and I both knew it had to be sleep related. Last year her 2nd grade teacher called almost weekly to tell us that Emmy has ADHD and that she needs medication. We kept telling her that a pediatrician/sleep specialist/behavior specialist said that she positively does NOT have ADHD, but of course this silly woman knew better.

Anyway, Emmy had already seen an ENT about having her tonsils removed, but he told us that they weren't enlarged and she was on the border for having them removed (she had strep about 5 times a year for 2 years). We decided to wait a bit and see what happened. The first sleep study showed OSA so we had the T & A. Things were improving while she was out of school after the surgery, but as soon as she went back to school, the behavior problems started again. She was a nightmare to deal with after about 4pm. We were trying to make sure she got close to 12 hours sleep per night so she could make it through school. She wouldn't take any naps and she was hyperactive to keep herself awake.

We told the specialist that she was STILL having problems and that's when she started talking medication. I told her that Emmy still wasn't sleeping. She had doubts, but tried another sleep study anyway. Come to find out, Emmy still had OSA and this time RLS too. The first study had the RLS as borderline. Considering she's about 4' and only weighs about 48 pounds, she's not overweight. I really don't know what's causing the OSA, but it made a world of difference to her attitude about herself just to know that her hyperactivity isn't due to her being a 'mean' child (like there is such a thing!).

This is the first week with a CPAP machine and so far we haven't been able to get her to actually go to sleep with the mask on (although I think we may have finally crossed the hurdle tonight :), but when they were getting the titration level in the sleep lab, it's the first time I've seen her actually sleep peacefully.

Emmys mom: Hi! My name is Kim, and my 5 year old son has OSA (I've got posts plastered all over this forum   .) Thanks for sharing your story. I think it's great that you didn't let your daughter's teacher influence you. Thank goodness for teachers and doctors, they know their stuff, but we, the parents, know our own children, we know them on an instinctive level-- that's why it's so irritating when people don't listen to us.      

What's even better is that you pursuaded the doc to do another sleep study, and the results proved you were right. Your daughter is lucky to have you as her advocate.

keep us posted on how the cpap is going!


Kim