aprehensiveangie wrote:
I am newly diagnosed with sleep apnea & on cpap struggling away. I am relieved after 7 years of tiredness but resentful that I had to endure severe depresssion before self diagnosing. I'm a 42 year female went from 103 pounds to 153 at one point with no explanation.
You've described what many of us have gone through.
So many of us are diagnosed only after years, often decades, of suffering in some form or another.
Feeling resentful and bitter is pretty common for many of us.
And depression is such a common thing with untreated sleep apnea. For many that goes away magically with cpap treatment.
And so often depression with untreated sleep apnea is treated with drugs, making untreated apnea even worse.
As for me, the depression went away after cpap, but I was left with a sadness over the lost years when I might have been diagnosed earlier.
But you can't allow yourself to think that way for long, or it will drive you crazy. Luckily many of us become grateful for the dramatic change in how we feel, that we get over it.
As to weight gain, that is common too. Some say that the sudden weight gain is from inactivity due to the daytime exhaustion felt and our reaction to it.
Others say there's also a chemical change in the body. But I have a hunch there's even more to it. I had sudden weight gain when I KNEW I should have either lost or stayed the same, with everything else being the same. Unexplained weight gain is definitely one symptom of untreated sleep apnea.
I'm hoping your relief is a good one, that you're far less exhausted than before. I know it's easy to be resentful for the time lost. But we're the lucky ones, if you think about it. There are other health conditions which are far worse and affect people all day long. We have a treatment, no matter how much we don't like it, but we only use it when we sleep. I would much rather have this than some of the other health conditions many people have. And treatment for sleep apnea is still new in many ways. The condition has always been around, but only recently have we understood it, and more recent still, learned how we can treat it. Many people have lost their lives or had led a longer more miserable existance than us who can now do something about it. My suggestion to you is that now that you're feeling better, try and make the most of it. Easier said than done sometimes, but try. You deserve to be happy, so enjoy things as much as you can. I should take my own advice on this. We need to be reminded, I think. Take care.
Linda
