When I was describing Eric's apnea to the ENT he said that is sounds as though he has obstructive apnea (DUH) but he said that some of what I described didn't fit the bill and that there may be more going on. He said the pauses that are followed by quietly starting to breath sound as though it could be a bigger problem. Yes, The tonsils and adenoids contribute to what's going on, but that he may still have apnea issues.

He will be having a sleep study after he recovers from surgery.

If it IS his brain causing apnea spells, and he is in fact having them and not me being stupid... how do they treat it? Does anyone know?
Maybe a link setting me in the right direction would be nice.

THANKS

If it IS his brain causing apnea spells, and he is in fact having them and not me being stupid... how do they treat it? Does anyone know?
Maybe a link setting me in the right direction would be nice.


Interesting? I never thought about that.

My bf has sleep apnea and I just thought b/c he was old and fat? Well not that old and not that fat, but you know what I mean?

Yes, I would like to see a link on that. But what do you each google for?

i dont know any thing about that sort of apnea mikis is all due to reflux and throat issue sorry i cant be of any help

lily-mae has apnea cuased by reflux. i wastold this is beacuse she inhales the vomit and then the winpipe shuts off to prevent fluid entering the lungs, therefore she stops breathing. sorry i cant be of much help x

I'm not sure what they do if the apnea is caused by a neurological problem...

Did a quick google: Here are some links I found:

http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/general/sleep/apnea.html
http://sleepdisorders.about.com/od/sleepapnea/a/central.htm

Vicky

Hi Minnie,

This is my first time posting on here so I hope that I do it correctly! My 15 month old son Ethan used to have apnea due to reflux. He has had over a dozen episodes, all of them during the day. He always turned blue and became totally limp. It was the worst thing ever. The thing that turned it around for us was going with a more aggressive medication. He had been on Zantac only for months, then when we switched him over to prevacid and reglan the apnea stopped. It has been 7 months since we've seen an apnea event. I'm sorry I don't have any links for you, I had a hard time finding anything online about this issue.

Best,
Heather

Minnie what you are describing is central apnea and it is very rare, something like 5% of apnea people have it. They will either medicate or they can even operate. If the test comes back central, you will probably be sent for a more tests on his brain to see what it is.

I really wouldn't worry for the moment, Eric sounds like very typical obstructive apnea, with some reflux apnea also involved.:hug:

Thanks Heather for your input, I found the same with my sons reflux as soon as we started the PPI we had no further problems, so far. Welcome to IRD!

No clue on this at all as I have only heard of reflux issues, obesity, and adenoids, etc. causing the problem. I would love to know what your sleep study finds, Minnie. This is all new to me and out of my realm. Walker had blue episodes due to reflux, but no actual apnea as far as I know. Then again, we did not know what we were dealing with back then.

Thanks guys,
I have been reading up on it and like a lot of your LOs Eric's had lot's of apnea because of his reflux. It has gotten better with time, and with the PPI these type spells are completely over. I saw the most improvement when he was 6 months old and his constipation was finally under control. That and thickening helped a lot.

My DH and I really listened the past few nights and we think it's more of a breathing pattern break that we are hearing. Going from his regular louder mouth breathing to quiet normal breathing. It will be easier to tell once the adenoids are out I think.

There are 3 types of apnea. Obstructive, Lary spasms (reflux, which is also considered obstructive in some articles), and central apnea.
Central apnea always has a cause just like the others. So treatment is finding out the cause. Mostly I'm coming up with heart conditions that cause it, so I feel a little better. If Eric had a heart problem I would think for sure it would have been noticed by now. At least you'd hope so (eye roll)
I also found out that central apnea in a child is very rare. It mostly happens with adults and is usually caused by a heart problem.

YOu all rock!
Thanks for helping me learn about it

:hug: that is what we are here for.

The other night we had Parker in the porta cot and he was having that heavy breathing again, I have no idea what is causing it, so let me know if anything comes up.

hello not sure how long ago this was posted as i have been adsent for a couple of months

My son Matthew is 2 1/2 and was dx with central sleep apnoea at 14 months.
he was 1st noted to have pauses in breathe at 6 months old but took til he was 14 months to get dx he had a sleep study which found apnoeas but they put his apnoeas down to his reflux

wasnt til they got worse he had another sleep study a month later which showed they had got worse 16% in one study to 32% in the nxt.
we then got told mathew apnoeas where brain realted and he would need furher investigations which he got last december. he had MRI, 48 hour EEG, bulbar EMG, another sleep study. and a genetic test for a condrion caled central hyperventilation syndrome

all of matthews test where clear so still to this day we do not know y he has apnoeas. hes on a apnoea alarm and that is all tehy can do for him, caffine is used in very prem babies who have this prob but wouldnt work with matthew

if i can offer any help let me know
love nat

Nat,
I wondering if you can tell me what the pauses sound like, if anything.
Eric has had his adenoids and tonsils removed, and seems to have completely recovered from surgery now. I hear nothing. The obstructive apnea is gone. It's beautiful, but I don't think that I would even hear a pause if there was one now.
Is this something you can hear or is the apnea alarm all you have to go by?
How often does it happen?
How long are the pauses?

All of Eric's apnea symptoms have completely disappeared, and I truly believe that he is FINALY getting some real sleep, but what I heard prior to his surgery still has me wondering, and now that I can't hear him breath, how do I know for sure? (well the sleep study will tell me, but I want to know now! LOL)
With Eric the pauses were often (every 10 minutes or so he would have pause after pause after pause, for about 5 minutes), but they were short. On average the pauses were only around 3 seconds long.

hello
we dont ever hear matthew we have always had an alarm from when we first noted the apnoeas which is what alerted us to it, we bought an under mattress one coz of his asthma and this was constantly going off, he would be very hard to wake and pale. the alarm we have is set to 20 seconds so matthews apnoeas will have to be at 20 seconds to set the alarm off.
the most he has ever had in one night was last augsut when he had 285 in a 7 hour sleep in a sleep study. the most he has had at home in one night must be about 50.

he can average from one every 5 minutes to one every couple of hours which get worse with illness.

there is also something called periodic breathing which is common in everyone which involves breathign then pausing then breathing again then stopping which doesnt normally make colour change, matthew has severe periodic breathing as well.

Matthew apnoeas have got so bad where he has required resus, he normally self resolves or comes round with stimulation but there has been 2 occasions where this hasnt worked and hes needed resus to bring him bk round which i have done myself.

have u been through a sleep study b4?

he would be very hard to wake and pale.
there is also something called periodic breathing which is common in everyone which involves breathign then pausing then breathing again then stopping which doesnt normally make colour change, matthew has severe periodic breathing as well.

Matthew apnoeas have got so bad where he has required resus, he normally self resolves or comes round with stimulation but there has been 2 occasions where this hasnt worked and hes needed resus to bring him bk round which i have done myself.

have u been through a sleep study b4?

Eric went through a long phase of being hard to wake and pale (around 3 to 4 months). He slept 22 to 23 hours a day and the only reason he was awake for the short time he was, is because I was trying to feed him. I thought this was because he wasn't eating, and still it could be from dehydration and malnurishment that he did this, but now you have me wondering if maybe more was going on.

Eric had lot's of blue spells, but always came around on his own, and it always seemed to be reflux related as well. He hasn't had any blue spells since he was 6 months old. The obvious pauses in breathing while awake stopped about this time too. (Other than choking on food/drink)

I have never had to resuscitate him even after long pauses, but Eric never went longer than 20 seconds. At least not that I'm aware of.

From what you said it sounds like Eric has/had periodic breathing. The pauses like I said were very short, and he resumed breathing like nothing happened. It's very different than what his obstructive apnea was like (It's so nice to say WAS).

Even though Eric's breathing problems weren't that severe (at least this is what I was always told) it was scary, especially when he was younger. I honestly don't know if I could have handled it if it had been any worse than what it was. (((BIG HUG))) for all that you have been through.

We haven't done a sleep study before, but I think I know what we are in for. The doc hasn't decided yet if we are going to do it at home or not. I honestly don't think it will fly at home and that Eric would do much better in a controlled environment. He always does better for the cute nurses than he does for me. LOL

But anything you have to offer about any of this I'll gladly soak it all in.
Thanks a lot

hi ya
sounds like the stopping breathing etc in the day could have been linked to his reflux
have they not suggested the apnoeas could be reflux related?

i have found a couple of webistes for u, as im no expert only telling u what we have been though
plus i have a couple of piccies of matthew having his sleep study in august

any sort of apnoea is very scarey hun no matter how long they last but i know hospitals dont take it serious enoguh as we found out, our local admitted matthew for 5 days 2 months b4 he had a proper sleep study, he was attached to a sats monitor and apnoea alarm, had low sats, alarm going off but they said he didnt have apnoeas and wasnt going to die and stop using the alarm we bought but i didnt listen, 2 months later he had a proper sleep study and i was right he did have sleep apnoea.

http://www.drhull.com/EncyMaster/B/breathing_periodic.html

this webiste explains about periodic breathing.


http://www.childsdoc.org/fall96/sheldon/sleepdis.asp
this webiste explains all the differnt types of apnoeas

matthew has 4 of those. periodic breathing, Hyponoeas, central hyperventilation and central apnoea.

i would ask for a sleep study in hopsitla the one at home wouldnt be as detailed as the one they do in hosp as u will see with the pictures.

here is a picture of the machine they use
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b393/nathollyandmatthew/Photo-0017.jpg

and here is a piccie of matthew asleep with all his wires
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b393/nathollyandmatthew/Photo-0016-1.jpg

good luck

hi ya
sounds like the stopping breathing etc in the day could have been linked to his reflux
have they not suggested the apnoeas could be reflux related?


LOL It took a long time before they believed Eric had problems with reflux, because he didn't puke. Once they agreed, EVERYTHING got blamed on reflux.

His breathing problems were never taken seriously. In fact there was no word at all about his breathing in his medical records, until we saw our current doctor when he was 16 months old. This was my biggest concern and I always brought it up, then after hearing "Babies sometimes do that", "It's reflux breathing, and there's nothing you can do." and getting no help for it so many times I just got used to it instead of pushing for help with it.

Thanks for the links.

I'm sure I'll be back with more questions after I read. LOL

Thanks again

Being a respiratory therapist, I honestly think that his apnea is from reflux and tonsils. I hope that it is in fact just that and the ENT is right, this is much easier to treat than central apnea

I think you're right ;)
I read quite a bit yesterday (Thanks for all the info) and with all the tests Eric has gone through. CT scans, Sweat tests, MRI and such Everything that would cause central apnea and meet up with his other symptoms have already been looked at. Maybe his doctor's were doing more than I thought. oops! LOL

That and Eric is doing so well now that his tonsils and adenoids are gone. So BEAUTIFULLY well. I swear I could write a list a mile long of all the changes I have seen. :smt041