What has your experience with sleep apnea been and did you turn to the special oxygen gadget that is made for the condition?

My father had one. He used it and hated it. He had a beard and could never get it to fit right so the recordings were never what they should be and he ended up fighting with Medicaid over what they would cover and what they would not.
I went in and was tested for sleep apnea. I had a mild case and decided that, personally, I did not need to spend the money on a machine. I lost a little weight and that took care of the problem. (In the interest of full disclosure, I gained it back again and lo and behold, the apnea came back too). I sometimes get kicked out of bed for my “popping” but most of the time it is fine.

My 9 year old daughter has sleep apnea. It’s scary when I notice her breathing is off. The seconds it takes for her to catch her breath feel like minutes. Her sleep apnea is due to an enlarged tonsil. She’ll be seeing an ENT soon and will probably need her tonsil removed.

Thanks for the answers, is there anything we can do for an apnea sufferer other than just nudge him when/if we notice the breathing going off during sleep?

I am not sure. I would talk to your health care provider for some suggestions.
My wife just kicks the crap out of me several times a night but that is as much for snoring as apnea.

Some people have been helped by a special dental appliance.

My niece with Down Syndrome his been using the machine for years. It took an initial adjustment period but it workout fine.

I was just diagnosed and I’m going through it now. I don’t have the common obstructive sleep apnea, and I’m not overweight. I have central sleep apnea, which means that my brain forgets to tell my body to breathe. I recently got a fancy machine for it (ASV). I can’t use the traditional CPAP. I have to use a machine that is 4x the cost and supposedly takes months to get used to.
PM me if you want.

I had sleep apnea. But I’ve also had weird sleeping issues since I was a child at one time I was sleep eating. And I’ve passed this down to my nephew.

My husband used to get scared about by my breathing.

I used to fall asleep everywhere, it would just hit me without warning. The scariest moment for me was
the first time this happened I was at a local park & I fell asleep at the wheel for 5 seconds while I was leaving the park luckily no one else was on the road and the car had good alignment so I stayed on the road and my daughter who yelled “MOM!” woke me. The funny thing is I didnt even feel tired.
So after that I was off to the skeep clinic. They found I had sleep apnea and I forget the exct numbers but the doctor said he’d never seen someone stop breathing so much it was like 110 times an hour and no wonder I was falling asleep because I wasnt really getting a restful sleep he also said that that’s probably why when I slept sometimes I could sleep for over 12 hours because in that 12 hours of sleep I was actually only getting 8 if you excluded the amount of times I “woke up” from not breathing.

So at the time go figure I could’nt afford the machine so I didnt drive for awhile and we saved up to get a new mattress, a much cheaper option. Then my husband passed away so I honestly do not remember what happened after that with the sleep apnea. But I know now 3yrs later I have lost a lot of weight and I’ve been able to get out everyday for a walk and before my husband passed I quit smoking so my cardio now is way better than it ever was. All that plus the awesome foam mattress my husband ended up purchasing I haven’t had any instances of sleep apnea!

So I can say what I think was agitating the sleep apnea for me and they may be the same or different for someone else:
~Stress
~Smoking
~Not enough exercise
~Mattress

My mom has/ had sleep apnea, but it was mainly due to weight gain in my opinion, and she also drank very heavily to the point of passing out and smoked cigarettes.

Now she has lost the weight & quite drinking but refuses to ask her dr to take away the machine, she says pure oxygen is very addictive and almost gets her a ‘high’.