[Symptoms] Is this apnea (wife)?

[bbbl67]

So I've been on a CPAP machine for a number of years now. I think I've gotten sensitive to when someone else is going through apnea, but you know asking more people is better than one. So my wife often has these choking spells in her sleep. She would just start coughing violently in the middle of the night, but this doesn't happen every night, maybe few times a month. Strangely, this wouldn't even wake her up, she'd still be asleep and not even remember it the next day except for the fact that I tell her about it. Now, the reason I'm not sure she's going through apnea is because there's a few contradictory pieces of evidence. And I don't want to just recommend she get a sleep study done unless it's necessary. So maybe if you folks can let me know what you think is going on here?

Here's the evidence pro and con.

Pro:

• choking & coughing
  
• dry mouth, possibly indicating that she keeps her mouth open at night?
  
• teeth grinding, her dentist said she needs to wear a night guard because she's grinding her teeth at night, which is something that was said of me as well. I don't know if this is a sign of apnea per se, though. Night guards are often used to treat apnea too, right?
  
• She has gained a few pounds over the past few years, which is natural at our age.
  

Con:

• not a lot of snoring, occasionally you'd hear her, but too much. It's a quiet type of snoring.
  
• if snoring does happen, it doesn't last long.
  
• very inconsistent symptoms, doesn't happen all of the time.
  

So what do you folks think? Apnea or not?

[DaveCar]

Is it possible that she is suffering apneas, but you only hear the large ones ?
My mom had undiagnosed sleep apnea, when I was young I could hear gentle snoring and then a quiet period followed by a snort. Other times it would be a long silence followed by a huge gasping snort/snore. Fast forward decades, and there's me living with the same and didnt recognize it. My wife would say very similar occurrences happened to me.
Eventually, a doctor picked up my clues and sent me for a study where they found severe apneas and very low blood oxygen during the episodes.
Afaik, blood oxygen drops each time someone stops breathing. Perhaps a simple SPO2 tracker (fingertip) that she wears during the night could give you some initial info ?

[Sleepster]

The cough could be from acid reflux. Does it happen only on nights when she's had something different to eat?

I would suggest she bring up these concerns with her doctor.

[bbbl67]

The cough could be from acid reflux. Does it happen only on nights when she's had something different to eat?

I would suggest she bring up these concerns with her doctor.

No, she rarely eats anything different from night to night. She's a super finicky non-adventurous eater, and only likes a limited set of food. And she doesn't like to experiment with anything new. But with that said, one of the few things she likes all of the time is anything hot-spicy, even eating Thai chilies raw. But she eats these all of the time, her stomach has now gotten lined with iron, I suspect. If she's having problems with spicy food and acid reflux, then she'd be having problems every day.

[bbbl67]

Is it possible that she is suffering apneas, but you only hear the large ones ?
My mom had undiagnosed sleep apnea, when I was young I could hear gentle snoring and then a quiet period followed by a snort.  Other times it would be a long silence followed by a huge gasping snort/snore.  Fast forward decades, and there's me living with the same and didnt recognize it. My wife would say very similar occurrences happened to me.
Eventually, a doctor picked up my clues and sent me for a study where they found severe apneas and very low blood oxygen during the episodes.
Afaik, blood oxygen drops each time someone stops breathing.  Perhaps a simple SPO2 tracker (fingertip) that she wears during the night could give you some initial info ?

Yeah, I recognized these signs in a lot of relatives that have already passed away, aunts, uncles, etc. I'm pretty certain one uncle, with a reputation for being a loud snorer was suffering from apnea, and he likely died from it.

Oh, another symptom I just remembered. My wife is a very late sleeper, like going to sleep at 3 or 4 in the morning late, and then waking up again in the morning by 7. Going to sleep late seems to me like a subconscious fear of going to sleep? I had that problem too until I got my CPAP.