I was choking in my sleep last night. Sleep apnea?

No you wouldn't be wrong, it does sound like sleep apnea

Thanks House. What about frequency? The last time it happened was about a year ago if I remember it right, may be a bit more than a year. It happened several times within a short period. It has been a while between the two. Does it sound normal? Should there be some kind of pattern? What is your experience like? Please share.

Well when I've woken up choking it's been with acid reflux, so that's another possibility, but you didn't mention any reflux,, you can't miss it if you've got it but sometimes if it's more gaseous it's hard to tell it was reflux. A niggly cough (for a few days afterwards) could mean it's reflux rather than apnea

No, there wasn’t any reflux in my case. I just couldn’t breath. It felt like drowning in slow motion. I slowly came into consciousness from sleep like one emerging from deep water back to surface while suffocating from Apnea-like symptom. Horrible.

Your case sounds a bit more complicated than mine. Have you tried avoiding food close to bed time or have dinner much earlier? Sounds to me you have an upset stomach at the same time when it hits you.

Yeah I'm on medicine for it

Yes, it sounds like sleep apnea.

For milder cases of sleep apnea, your doctor may recommend only lifestyle changes, such as losing weight or quitting smoking. If these measures don't improve your signs and symptoms or if your apnea is moderate to severe, a number of other treatments are available. Certain devices can help open up a blocked airway. In other cases, surgery may be necessary.

Agree with the others that it sounds like sleep apnoea. I have severe sleep apnoea and whilst I only experienced what you describe a few times, it turned out I was stopping breathing 30 times per hour! Definitely visit your GP to be referred for a sleep study.

Anyway, I realised this post was put in August, so hopefully you're on the way now to sorting your problem out.

Hi,

I've been suffering from both sleep apnea and acid reflux, both   caused due to a serious road traffic accident that left me with   four  broken vertebrae that resulted in me to losing  around 3 inches in height, most of which was over the thoracic region;  plus I received  head injuries that may have casued damage to the sleep centers.  also I am on opiate medication that also slows down the rate of breathing. .  The combination of  damage  caused   acid reflux and sleep apnea.  My wife  videoed me while I was asleep  with an oxometer attached to one of my fingers to measure oxygen saturation.  Some of  the  breaths I took while asleep were up to a minute apart and my  oxygen saturation went down to 68%.  If a patients saturations drop below 92% while in hospital they consider it  an emergency.  At the end of a non breathing episode i'd take a  great gulp of air.  If I was sleeping on my right hand side I'd also be prone to acid reflux (this is due to the cardiac sphincter  at the  entrance to the stomach being at it's lowest point and most prone to leakage of acid from the stomach into the oesophagus),   If  an episode of reflux occured  while I'd stopped breathing I'd then breath in  this acid which would block my lungs up and I'd wake up not being able to breath.  I've been getting these attacks since  my accident 9 years ago.  They got progressively worse until i was put onto a stronger antacid  drug called Eso omeprazole (The NHS wont automatically prescribe this version unless you've first tried Omeprazole and other similar drugs that are much cheaper).  For almost a year I've not had an attack until a couple of weeks ago.  since then it's happened 3 times.  The last one was the worst  I'd ever suffered, where I really thought I was going to choke to death as I couldn't clear the acid from my lungs initially.  It really scared my wife who called an ambulance, however by the time she'd finished talking to them, I'd cleared my lungs of the acid enough for me to be able to breath. 

Trying to sleep on your left side and not eating anything  leading up to going to bed, (at least a couple of hours),  can  help cut down on the acid reflux.  Sleeping slightly propped up can help with the breathing problems, but it's not  a cure.

Hi

i have just had the same attack AGAIN and I have to sip boiled water to help clear any sticky saliva to enable me to really feel calm enough to sleep again

i am worse if there's not enough fresh air bc I dry out n choke

also what make me worse is certain foods that cause mucous i.e, chocolate greasy food or dairy and oily foods n sauces 

hope this helps 

H

My wife just woke me up, due to choking in my sleep. What's funny, I was sitting up and head tilt back on sofa . Now, I do have sleep apnea, got machine, but, to me it's no good. Going back to VA, asking may I go elsewhere for second opinion.