What are the Central Sleep Apnea Symptoms?

Posted By EightNine On 24th April 2011

Central sleep apnea is far less common than obstructive sleep apnea and even though most of the symptoms are similar the causes are completely different. Central sleep apnea is caused by your central nervous system not transmitting messages to the rest of your body properly rather than by an obstruction of the airway. Nevertheless the central sleep apnea symptoms will likely be similar which can make it hard to identify. It is important to be able to recognize the cause of the apnea since the treatments will be different.

In large part the central sleep apnea symptoms are the same as the symptoms for obstructive sleep apnea. However there is one symptom that is usually different. That is that most people with central sleep apnea don’t snore. This is because the cause of their condition is not that their airway is blocked but rather that their brains are not sending the message to your body telling it to breathe properly. The result is that you will frequently stop breathing at night but you likely won’t snore. Of course you may still snore, there are lots of people who snore but don’t have apnea, but in this case it is not a symptom of the condition.

The only real way for anybody to spot central sleep apnea symptoms is to monitor your sleep. This is usually done at a sleep clinic but if you have a partner that you sleep with they will probably be able to spot the problem as well. In most cases when you do stop breathing you will wake up gasping. Usually this occurs over such a short time period that you don’t even wake up fully. That means that you likely won’t recognize that it is happening but anybody who is watching you sleep will. This is also why your doctor will likely want to talk to your partner when he is trying to diagnose sleep apnea.

The most obvious central sleep apnea symptom that you are likely to recognize is going to be that you feel tired all the time. This goes back to all the times that you wake up gasping at night. Even though these don’t wake you up fully they are enough to make sure that you don’t get a good sleep. Instead you get a shallow sleep that is more like a nap. The result is that no matter how long you sleep for you still feel tired all of the time.

One other way that central sleep apnea symptoms differ from obstructive sleep apnea is that most people with the condition are not overweight. Strictly this isn’t a symptom since it is usually the cause of obstructive sleep apnea but it is something that your doctor will look for. This is hardly going to be definitive and it is entirely possible that you could be overweight and have central sleep apnea. Nevertheless it is not a cause of the condition and really can’t be used to help determine if you have it or not.

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