Sleep Apnea

I had a sleep study done. The doctor said I had sleep apnea but not the kind where the tounge blocks the airway. He said my brain actually cuts off at times during sleep. Has anyone else ever heard of this. If so can this be treated or can it be fatal

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This is not a post, it was suggested that I give more information since there has been no response to my original question. When I was still a fetus, the doctors told my mother that she would have to remian in bed for the last 6 months of her pregnancy. They told her if she did this that they still could not guarantee a live birth or a baby born without birth defects. She smoked througout her pregnancy against the advice of the doctors. When I was born, I was 21 inches long, but less than 5lbs. There were no apparant physical defects except for my weight and a thymus glan that did not shrink. They finally shrunk the thymus glan with radiation. I was constantly sick with something, ruuny nose, ear aches, sore throats, post nasal drip and possible seizures; although, my parents not knowing any better at the time did not think that was something to bring to the attention of the doctors. My mother told me this after I had a gran mall seizure at work when I was 41 years old. I was taken by ambulance to a hospital close to work. They kept me a week and wanted me to be there longer as they could find no reason for the seizure except a possible allergic reaction to ambien, which I was taking for back, shoulder and arm pain. I also found out that my tonsils were removed right before my third birthday as the Doctors felt this would solve some of the problems with the sickness I was having at the time. removing the tonsils had no effect on my almost constant sickness. When I was 15, ihaqd been and was despite of the sickness an active child. I played football, tennis and was active outside. They finally decided to give me a skin allergy test. They did not test for foods just different plants, grasses, dogs, cats, cows, horses and that type of thing. They did over 100 test and I was allergic to over 90% of the things they tested me for, so I was put on allergy shots. The Doctors also told my parents that it was a shame that I did not know what it felt like to feel normal or good. I has a reaqction to one of the allergy shots in the Doctors office when they tried to raise the dose. i went in to anaphalactic shock and almost quit breathing until they could get enough epinephrene in my system to counter the reaction.

About 6 months later my mother approached the Doctors about letting her give me the shot at home since it was about 45 miles from where we lived to the Doctors office. She was in Nursing School at the time, so the Doctors agreed. The first shot she gave me at home, I had another reaction. She and my little sister put me in the car and she took me to a Dentist office who was a personal friend of ours. He kept epinephrene in his office. all I remember is him giving me 3 shots in the stomach and then we left for the Doctors office. When we got to the Doctors office, they gave me two more shots and after about an hour I was allowed to go home. I made the decision at that time that I was not going to take the allergy shots anymore. From that point on to this day I still have allergy problems but have just lived with them. I was undersized for my age but still continued to play football and was good enough to be picked to play on the Varsity as a 5'8" 125 pound freshman. I continued to play through high school and had I been a little bigger would have gotten a scholarship to college. I suffered no real injuries while I was playing except for concussions which after the first one, I would not come out of a game or tell anyone if I felt like I had another one. So I played with concussions at least 4 or 5 games. When I graduated high school, I first went to technical college and got my paramedics license. I worked as a paramedic while I went to college. My goal was to become a PA; however, I got married younger than I had expected and ended up switching to computer science to cut down on the number of years it would take me to get a good job. I had pain pretty much all the time; however, I would not tell anyone. I then had a horrible car wreck where a guy ran a stop sign and came in to my lane, I only slide about 42 feet that is how fast it happened. I t-boned him in the passengers door.

Wittnesses said I went through the windsheild and would have ended up thrown in the road; however, the hood of my car rolled up and stopped me. The other car went airborne and ended up about 45 yards out in a field. I was traqnsported to the hospital by ambulance and a policeman told me that in a wreck like I had the driver usually lives less than a second after impact. I was in the hospital for a little over a week and 1/2, they ran all the diagnostics they could think of and all I came out with was a concussion and broken elbow. I also had some problems with my neck and back according to the neurologist, but I was not having any real pain or problems with it. He told me it was the type of injury that I may never have another problem with or it could develope in to something he called brachial neuropathy. They also found out that my brain was covered in something that was white. Since I was not having any neurological problems at the time, they wrote it off from all the concussions I had expereienced. When I was in my mid forties, I started having problems with my upper back, neck, left arm and hand. I was diagnosed with brachial neuropathy. I had trigger point IV's that did no good. I finally had an attack one day where I could not grab or pick up anything with my left hand, I started shuffling my feet, had head or neck drop and my wrist became parilized in a down position. I was taken to the hospital and given pain relievers and referred to a neurologist. The neurologist was terrible he ran just about every diagnosis you could run on someone in my position and they all showed nerve and spinal damage. The neurologist still could not come up with a diagnosis, so he was finally going to run a spinal tap. Before he could run a spinal tap, I had an accident where I fell of a deck I was helping to build and landed on a pile of railroad ties flat on my belly. I was taken to the hospital because the pain was extremely bad in my abdomen and I could not urinate. I got to the emergency room and was seen by a doctor contracted to work the E.R., I do not know what kind of Doctor she was but after being x-rayed, she told my wife that there was no injury and that she could take me home. I went straight to bed when I got home and knew I was going to lay there and die that night. About 3am we got a call from another Doctor at the hospital who was a who was a surgeon and said they had been going over my x-rays and had found that I had a ruptured bladder and to get to the hospital as fast as I could as I was going to need emergency surgery.

I woke my wife up and she got dressed and helped me out of bed. I could hardly walk, I was in so much pain. She finally got me in the car and took me to the hospital where they were waiting on me. The surgeon showed me where the tear in my bladder was and explained the surgery and asked me to sign which I did provided I got something for pain. I woke up two days later in intensive care. I was catherized and I looked at my stomach and I had staples going from just under my chest all the way down to my pubic area. The day I was being discharged the Neurologist I had been seeing came by my room and asked me if I wanted to have the spinal tap done before I went home. I told him I did not feel like it. I got home and for three months was catherized with a collection bag attached to my leg. Once that was over I decided that I was not going to see the Neurologist I had been seeing before the bladder incident and went and say my primary physician instead to get his opinion and to get a referral to a new Neurologist. He ran several diagnosis on me and when I returned to his office to go over the results, he shocked me and asked if anyone had told me I had renal disease. I said no and he referred me to Emory University Hospital here in Atlanta. They ran a few diagnostics and told me that my kidneys were dying from what they could determine was poising. They said it was the first case they had like that in a decade. I was put on dialysis immediately and three years later I had a kidney transplant. I still had the problem with the neurological stuff, I saw a neurologist at Emory who first diagnosed me with MS. Several diagnostics later by a group of neurologist at Emory decided it was not MS. They finally agreed on the brachial neuropathy diagnosis and referred me for pain management. My wife was the one that insisted I see a sleep Doctor because at night just like every night since I was a child my nose would stop up at night and I would end up snoring. I saw a sleep specialist at Emory who decided they needed to do a sleep study on me. When they were through and I went back for the results, I was expecting to be put on a cpap.

Then he told us about the problem that showed up during the diagnosis. He said my brain would cut off intermittenly through the night. He did not go in to what caused it, how dangerous it was, he just put me on o2 an night with a nasal canula. I knew the nasal canula would never work because of my nose. We tried it and it did not work. I called the Doctors Office back and tried to make an appointment. I got put off from seeing him for like a month. I called his office and asked them if they could go ahead and have the company that was supplying the o2 to go ahead and pick it up since I could not use it. The Doctor refused. I finally called Emory and filed a complaint against him. They came back to me and told me until I could get another Doctor to fax them a letter saying he was taking responsibility for my care concerning the problem that the Doctor would not release the equipment. I had my Primary Care Doctor send him a letter and the equipment got picked up. I have not had the problem followed up on since then. I have had to many other problems come up. I broke my wrist in a fall. I have been amemic for over six months. I have had iron infusions, then my blood work was showing signs of cancer according to my nephrologist, so I saw a Cancer specialist who did a series of blood work on me and ruled out cancer. I am now 57 years old, have been on disability since 2006. I continue to see my nephrologist, my primary care doctor ande another neurologist when I fell backwards down a flight of steps, my head hit the hardwood floor and then I slid in to a large clay pot holding a plant which busted. I ended up having 23 staples put in my head in the emergency room. I went to the neurologist at the request of my Primary Care Doctor who finally got a look at the emergency room records the night I fell. I had been having some problems with my neck. The neurologist said I had broke my neck at C2 or 3 and T3. He sent me to a nerosurgeon who wanted to go in and fix my neck with some chemical which would solve the breaks, but he also told me that; although, they had done this same procedure with a laser several times tha they had never attempted to do it so high in the neck, it was usually used for the larger bones in the lower spine. He also said I had scoliosis. He told me since they had never done this procedure so high in the neck that he could not rule paraylysis out. He gave me the choice of the surgery or just not doing anything to see if it would heel on it's own. I chose the latter.

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I posted more information regarding my condition; however, I was not familiar with the system and the additional information ended up as a post on my original question.

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