Breathing starts becoming shallow until CA/OA occur(anxiety and respiratory depressed

[MyronH]

I've written about this condition I have before, and it is really starting to affect my quality-of-life and work. I thought I was doing fine last week or so, but last night the issue occurred.

I think it has something to do with anxiety, and also partly with what I eat during the day. Perhaps also an issue with my gallbladder. Because when I eat heavy or fat foods, I start to feel unwell and have respiratory depression. On my sleepy head charts, my breathing starts getting very sporadic and shallow, until it turns into a CA or OA.

See this chart, this isnt the best one I have to show, but does show, how my breathing starts to slow, and perhaps starts to have some very short CA events that are not flagged due to being shorter then 10 seconds. But eventually it becomes so shallow that it occurs OA or CA and my oxygen drops to low 80's.

Has anyone else experienced this?


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[srlevine1]

I think it has something to do with anxiety, and also partly with what I eat during the day. Perhaps also an issue with my gallbladder. Because when I eat heavy or fat foods, I start to feel unwell and have respiratory depression.

It appears when I eat fatty or greasy foods, I too, suffer from gallbladder (gallstone confirmed with ultrasound) symptoms which I notice leads to shallower breathing -- mainly to avoid additional pain in my upper quadrant. I can see the depression on both Sleepyhead and ResScan charts. 

I notice that you have some major leakage which can skew the readings. Is this a "trending" pattern experienced several days in a row.

And, I am curious about what you are using to record your SPO2 levels.

Best of luck with resolving the issue. Perhaps some of the sharpshooters here can hone in on an issue based on the limited chart data.

[REMless]

Is your Oximeter working properly?  Your pulse rate min at 23 and your o2 min at 12. On average my ODI is usually around 10-12 with typically up to 80 drops (contec cms50f) -- don't know if these are accurate readings.  My AHI is is usually less than 1.

[MyronH]

It appears when I eat fatty or greasy foods, I too, suffer from gallbladder (gallstone confirmed with ultrasound) symptoms which I notice leads to shallower breathing -- mainly to avoid additional pain in my upper quadrant. I can see the depression on both Sleepyhead and ResScan charts. 

I notice that you have some major leakage which can skew the readings. Is this a "trending" pattern experienced several days in a row.

And, I am curious about what you are using to record your SPO2 levels.

Best of luck with resolving the issue. Perhaps some of the sharpshooters here can hone in on an issue based on the limited chart data.

I'm surprised to hear someone else have similar issues. My doctors think I'm crazy that at age 46, I have respiratory depression issues. My sleep doctor says all is good, since my AHI for 30 days is low. He never looks at individual days and refuses to look at my Sleepyhead printouts showing this issue. t first, I thought it was my Multaq medicine for AFIB causing the issue, because it sometimes happened an hour after I ate food with it. But now, I'm thinking it is fatty foods and my gallbladder causing this weird "unwell" feeling. But I don't have pain or anything and the doctors say these symptoms are not typical for gallbladder issues.

No my leaks have been under control, since I started using a dental appliance.  I'm using a Contec CMS50F for SPO2. It is fairly accurate most of the time, at least if I don't move. I checked it with one in the hospital, when I was admitted last month for DVT/PE. I'm now on blood thinners.  When I get this shallow breathing, sometimes it causes major anxiety, and when I lay down in bed, I feel my heart palpitations majorly near my belly button. I had a recent Ultrasound, so no indication of Aortic Aneurysm.  My sleep doctor also sent me an SPO2 MEDICAL GRADE DEVICE for one night, but it was during one of my good nights. If only he would listen to me and order one for full month, I could show him what happens.

I've been through multiple tests and seen all kinds of doctors, had a brain EEG, and they can't determine what is causing the shallow breathing and unwell feeling. So I scheduled to have my gallbladder surgery. The surgeon said it is full, and it's best to be proactive and take it out, since I'm on blood thinners. He said if a stone dislodges, it could go to my pancreas and on blood thinners, that would be a disaster. I'm hoping once it comes out, maybe that was the cause of my shallow breathing. If not, then only thing left is a colonscopy.

Here is a sample of what happens when I first try to go asleep. Notice between 15:00 and 20:00, that my O2 slowly drops to the 90% and stays there. That's when my breathing gets shallow. That causes me to have either CA's or OA's, which then cause major drop, which is seen after 20:00. My O2 Alarm wakes me up, and my heart races to get my O2 back to normal. Then i go to sleep, and the same thing happens. This continued one night, all night long and I didn't get any sleep because my oxygen kept dropping. I basically had to wait another day, until the symptoms went away to go to sleep.

This has been occuring for 3 months now, off and on. I've been losing weight rapidly too, since October, 30lbs, and that is why my Gastro doctor wants to do colonscopy.

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[srlevine1]

Have the doctors ruled out IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) which can be triggered by anxiety and result in feeling unwell and produce weight loss due to malabsorption of nutrients that are rushed through the system?
 
Has your cardiologist done an echocardiogram to check for blood flow issues and possible pulmonary hypertension?

Has anyone said anything about the inaccuracy of pulse oximeters when dealing with arrhythmias? I throw PVCs and PACs so the count between the R-waves may be irregularly irregular and the count looks funny.

Wishing you the best of luck and a definitive diagnosis and speedy resolution of all issues.

[matthewb]

Get a gall bladder test, i forget the exact name but my dad had something similar when he was alive, turned out he couldn't eat "fatty" meals. Diet change stopped all his sleeping issues and general feeling of bleh. He was never on cpap but the doctors did notice that fat would set off reduced spo2 levels during the night. turned out his gall bladder wasn't producing certain enzymes.

[MyronH]

I don't think my Gastro doctor did any test for IBD. I'd have to check. They did some other extensive blood work and abdominal CT scan. 

Cardiologist has done several echocardiograms over this past year. All good. I do take medicine for AFIB and hypertension though and my blood pressure is below 120/80 usually.

Yes my doctors hate me using these Oximeter saying they are inaccurate. While I was in the hospital for my DVT and PE, the last night I had them hook me up to their professional oximeter. It recorded my oxygen levels dropping too to the low 80's. I wore my Contec monitor at same time, and it was only about 1-2% off from the clinical grade O2 monitor.

I went to two surgeons and asked for gallbladder test. They said it was unnecessary. The first surgeon said he had people with strange issues and when he took it out they were normal again. The second surgeon recommended I just have it taken out. 

So I'm scheduled here end of this month for surgery  to have gallbladder removed. 

Last night I slept OK again except I still had a row of 20-30 second obstructions. And I felt my heart beating next to my belly button for a little bit before I went to sleep. 

I'm having a DISE Procedure next week to check for blockages in my throat and nose. They put you to sleep and my ENT will take a camera down my nose and throat to see what is causing my blockages.