Sleep Paralysis & Waking Up Choking

For how long you are experiencing sleep paralysis?
Have you experienced sudden awakenings to restart breathing?
Do you usually have headaches, sore throat, or dry mouth in the mornings after waking up?
Are you prone to waking up in a sweat during the night?

hi

i have what sounds like a similar problem. in my case it is averagely infrequent. say once every three to four months
it occurs only on waking at or around normal waking time and only if i have rolled onto my back while asleep.
i wake unable to move and unable to breathe in. the only way of voluntarily breaking out of it that i have discovered is to concentrate hard on exhaling.

this has lead me to believe that it is related to the apnea with which i also have been diagnosed.
i only became aware of the apnea via my partner who noticed that i stopped breathing whilst asleep. but the sleep paralysis i was always acutely aware of since it first began fifteen years ago.

because of the apnea i try not to sleep on my back and because of the associated fibromyalgia sleeping on my side is
uncomfortable so i have adopted a position halfway between.
i sleep lengthways on a sofa supported by the back and the squab with my legs in the recovery position.

in search of a good nights sleep i have arrived at this solution by degree over the past five years and whilst it is far from ideal it allows me to function normally during the day time.

i am currently awaiting being fitted for an MAD (a dental device which worn at night pulls the lower jaw forward in an attempt to keep the airway open whilst sleeping) which will i hope make things a whole lot easier

sorry for the lengthy response. i must have slept well last night. ordinarily i have trouble getting my thoughts down on paper

MCW

i know how you feel about trying to write things down lol my mind is mush most of the time, you said you have fm is that conected to your apnea? the reason i'm asking is i have me/cfs and wondered if i possibly have fm, possibly mis diagnosed as they are quite similar

K x

yes the fibro is related to the apnea/sleep disorder in a vicious circle.

in my case it was coming on for many years without me even realising it. then about five years ago i suddenly stopped being able to sleep at all.

what followed was a progressive decline. about 18 months ago i was finally diagnosed with apnea and since then i have been able to improve my sleep patterns gradually by trial and error.

i am now experimenting with light therapy as my body clock has gotten so far out of wack with all of this.

the fibro myalgia is a more recent development with muscular pains at first and culminating in a herniated disc late last year. something i never want to experience again.

with the sleep thing my experience has been that whatever improvemnts i can make are soon overtaken by the condition changing direction. i have come to the conclusion that my system has decided that on balance sleep is an unheathy state due to the stopping breathing.

i have become sensitised to perfumes and have to monitor the air quality carefully in my home. long distance flying became an impossibility for me around ten years ago because of the decline in cabin air quality once smoking had been banned on long haul flights.

i believe that it is all related and stems from the onset of the apnea and cosequently i have high hopes that once my night time breathing is corrected/improved i will see considerable improvements in general health.

i have managed two nights in a row of prolonged deep sleep and although wooly headed already feel much better able to concentrate and remember things.

another over long response from me but i also get a bit hyper when i get more sleep as if i am trying to fit in all of the things i couldn't do before.

MCW

Hi there,
I`m from Macedonia after 24 years I was interested is there are other people out there that have the same scary problem like I had.

I was diagnosed epilepsy but they are not sure because EEG did not show anything but symptoms where same.

How it begin, one morning i wake up with very hard headache just before waking up i heard or better to say seeing very loud sound hitting my head.
I'm still not sure what it was. After that problems started and i was Chocking every second night for a one year. Doctors tried with medications but nothing.

So how did I ended this?

- Replaced pillow with feathers with other ordinary pillows (non feather)
- Excluded any kind of meet products from my meals
- Only vegetable in meals

Try this for two months and see if it helps, it helped me.
After year i started to eat meat
After 24 years I still sleep on non feather pillow

Hope this can help you

Greeting from Macedonia

i am only 16 and i keep waking up choking.
it happens many times every night. normally every half an hour.
this is making me very tired and restless
i take a drink to bed with me every night and when i wake up choking i have a drink and then the choking dies down a bit until im just about to fall back to sleep and it happens again.
if anyone knows a way of preventing this then please can you get back to me asap
many thanks