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Enlarged Tonsuls
I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnao around a month ago. I stop breathing 72 times a night completely up to one minute and ten seconds and partially stop 86times. I am seeingan ENT specialist in three weeks time and i am booked in for a Tonsolechtomy. I have not yet seen a sleep specialist as the waiting time is long, hoping that removal of tonsuls will cure me. Has anyone else had this experience?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Terry Vella on
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Suzanne, welcome, good luck with the operation, normally what causes obstructive sleep apnea is when our throats relax at nigt and collapse and block our airways or our tongue collapses. It would depend on what your specialist says. There are three types of SA, obstructive, central (where our brians tell our nervous system not to breathe) and a mixture of both. I have not heard of many people that have any successful operations to cure SA. Normally once you have it the most successful treatment is CPAP and I say treatment as there is no cure, similar to diabeties etc. We are not Drs, just giving my opinion. If a sleep study has shown 72 times and it is servere it is more that likely 72 times an hour not a night. The way it is measured is 0-5 normal, 5-15 mild, 15 -30 moderate and 30+ servere, that is stopping breathing for 10 secs or more on average per hour. If you are on those numbers per hour I would try to start treatment as soon as possible as each time you have a apnea or stop breating, you wake up either conciously or subconciously and it means you hardly get any quailty sleep and your oxygen is not getting to your brain and the rest of your body and your blood is not flowing to your organs correctly. This then causes other illness's like diabeties, high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack etc.
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Permalink Reply by suzanne erdbrink on
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thanks for your reply, appreciate the feedback, obviously i am hoping that the operation will mean i no longer have sleep apnae but i wont know that until three months after the operation. they will do another test once the swelling has gone down. if i do end up needing a cpap machine well so be it. quality of life pretty poor at the moment so anything is better than what i am experiencing. thank you for taking the time to write to me.
Terry Vella said:Suzanne, welcome, good luck with the operation, normally what causes obstructive sleep apnea is when our throats relax at nigt and collapse and block our airways or our tongue collapses. It would depend on what your specialist says. There are three types of SA, obstructive, central (where our brians tell our nervous system not to breathe) and a mixture of both. I have not heard of many people that have any successful operations to cure SA. Normally once you have it the most successful treatment is CPAP and I say treatment as there is no cure, similar to diabeties etc. We are not Drs, just giving my opinion. If a sleep study has shown 72 times and it is servere it is more that likely 72 times an hour not a night. The way it is measured is 0-5 normal, 5-15 mild, 15 -30 moderate and 30+ servere, that is stopping breathing for 10 secs or more on average per hour. If you are on those numbers per hour I would try to start treatment as soon as possible as each time you have a apnea or stop breating, you wake up either conciously or subconciously and it means you hardly get any quailty sleep and your oxygen is not getting to your brain and the rest of your body and your blood is not flowing to your organs correctly. This then causes other illness's like diabeties, high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack etc.
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Thats OK Suzanne I'm in Australia to, in Melbourne, how come you cant see a sleep specialist? There must be some in Brisbane you can get into?
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The waiting list was actually a year! Now that i have received results they can see me in January after all however the sleep centre agree with my doctor. go and see the ENT specialist first, whip out the tonsuls and then see how you are, they feel it is very likely my enlarged tonsills caausing the problem. i was just interested to see if this has been the case for anyone else. How are you? Are you on a Cpap machine, has it improved your life?
Terry Vella said:Thats OK Suzanne I'm in Australia to, in Melbourne, how come you cant see a sleep specialist? There must be some in Brisbane you can get into?
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Suzanne, I'm fantastic, I have never been this good in 50 years, two years ago I was in a hospital with depression which was actually SA, could hardly walk and was literally dying. Now I go to the gym everyday, weights one day and jog 5kms the next, I walk 5 kms every night and love life, I can no longer sleep without my CPAP, she keeps me alive, won't go on but the best thing that has ever happened to me plus I get to talk to nice people like you and Kath and the others around the world and support and assist them where possible.
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oh wow! what a good news story that is. i can't even begin to think about having that sort of energy but i guess it is possible. i am fifty years old and feel 70! Have done for years, struggled with depression and anxiety for so long and have to sleep or at least lie down every afternoon. still working though and i am a mum too so juggling,
but feel its all uphill at the moment. i am pinning my hopes on this operation! 
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Suzanne like i said hope it works but it is not the end of the world, I used to get 1-2 hours sleep a night now I get 8 hours quality, I was diagnosed with depression anxiety etc, it is all the SA. SA causes so many illnesss but most doctors try to fix the symptoms not the cause, if the operation doesnt works get onto a CPAP for your life and your childs life, I hope it does work, keep asking questions and keep us updated. I have to go get tea its 5.30pm here, try to have a good nights sleep tonight.
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Permalink Reply by Kath Hope on
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Welcome to the forum Suzanne and it's certainly worth seeing an ENT specialist to find out why you have sleep apnoea. However, like Terry has said, removal of the tonsils in adults doesn't normally cure sleep apnoea, but let's hope you're one of the rare cases that it does! Children have a lot more success in being cured after a tonsillectomy, although sleep apnoea does often return when they're adults. I have sleep apnoea and have no tonsils!
Our newest member on this forum, Mike Smith has just started a new discussion on how he had surgery on his septum which sounds like it didn't work either :( Here's the discussion if you've not seen it http://hope2sleepguide.co.uk/forum/topics/newbie
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Suzanne, do the anti depressants work for you? I used to be on them and they kept upping the dosage till I got to twice the theraputic dose and I said that was enough. I was on all sorts of meds, Valium, Xanax, Zoloft, Seroquel and sometimes all at once to get me to sleep but still couldn't sleep and was so doped up during the day, thenI found the answer not the doctors. I haven't been on any prescription meds since June, I take some vitamins and some herbal sleep meds like Valerian. SA symptoms can be very similar to depression or sometimes the SA causes depression never the other way around though, things like tiredness, aches and pains, foggy head etc, in my case I kept saying I dont feel sad I am just so tired and sometimes feel sick but never sad but they kept saying I had deression.
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Suzanne, just with Kath's reply, it's up to you, but I would be seeing a sleep specialist even it you have the Tonsolechtomy, just in case it doesn't work you want a back up plan and something that you can go to quickly. I have put a site for a ENT who is a SA specialist in New York and member on this site, who has regular webinars, Dr Steven Park, if you ask him he may be able to let you know what the chances are of a Tonsolechtomy curing SA. He may be on holidays at the moment.
A good sleep speialist should be able to tell you from looking at your results whats happening, they should look at the size of your throat and can tell from there, my specialist in Melbourne diagnosed it as soon as I walked through his door (I do love that man, in a man way, for saving my life). He booked me in for an emergency sleep study the next day and I was on a CPAP the following week.
It's up to you what you do, but I hate seeing people that can get help and want help, having to suffer more.
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thanks T erry, i will write to Doctor Park and see what he has to say l will let you know how i go, i guess worse case scenario is i will still need a machine, how i will find $3000 i don't know, but we will find it because from the sound of things it will save my life. You have been most helpful!
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Do you have any insurance? There not $3000, $2000 max for a really good one, I know that is still a lot but this is your life we are talking about. When you get to that stage, if you do, well see what happens. In Australia, we can rent them for a few months so you can pay them off by the month, you could get them cheaper over the net so there are option. Just keep us updated on how your going.
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