I have suffered from sleep apnea for most of my life. I have only been treating my sleep apnea for a little over a year. Sleep apnea is terribly common, its not just for the older or over weight. Sleep apnea has made my life much more difficult than it needed to be.
I have always snored, loudly, and I have been exhausted most of my life. I did poorly in school because I was not able to stay awake. I would fall asleep on any car ride longer than 20 minutes, and I have never been able to focus on things that were not very interesting to me. In college I had to re-take art history 3 times because the class was always in January, at 7 am and cosisted of watching slides in the dark in a warm room - forget about it. I was asleep within 10 minutes.
I was actually told by a girlfriend 12 years ago that I had sleep apnea. She mentioned it to me, I of course had no idea what it was. She said essentially I was choking in my sleep, suffocating. I wish I had listened to her. 12 years later I was getting a physical, the doctor looked in my throat and announced that I had horrible sleep apnea. He could tell by how small my throat was. He told me that he and a few other doctors were putting together a report that showed that sleep apnea manifested symptoms that were commonly misdiagnosed. He explained that sleep apneas effects were often dignosed as depression, fybromialgia, ADD (Attention deficit disorder), sexual dysfunction, drug addiction, hypersomnia, and more. He had a very compelling arugment. He scheduled a sleep study for me and got me a deal on the price, $600, which was actually $2000 off the price. At the time I didnt have insurance.
...the sleep study >