Doing a search for "mcas sleep apnea" on google this was posted on the first result page:
"Sleep apnea, almost always obstructive, is found in 15% of MCAS patients and curiously occurs not uncommonly in non-obese patients [I'm not obese], raising questions of mechanisms which might include airways narrowed by edema, hypertrophy, fibrosis, or excessive mucus, or excessive loss of airway muscular tone in sleep."
I took a sleep apnea (at home) test about 5 years ago and was told there weren't enough incidents to diagnose it, but since then things got worse, and I also developed some GERD at night, so I tried sleeping upright (I have one of those large wedge pillows that didn't work for back pain). I noticed that it not only seemed to help with GERD (which I don't have at all any more), but also I was waking up gasping for breath or feeling like I "got the wind knocked out of me." I have also noticed the hypnic jerks are much less severe and much less common as well. It does take a few days to get used to sleeping upright, and I had to experiment with different pillows for support, but at this point I would dread sleeping while lying down. I tried doing that the other day after sleeping 4 or 5 hours upright, and I woke up breathless (and had that sensation where you think you hear a very loud noise but there wasn't any noise) several times within an hour or two. I'm curious if anyone else has had this kind of experience, and if you have tried something else that worked. Thanks.
"Sleep apnea, almost always obstructive, is found in 15% of MCAS patients and curiously occurs not uncommonly in non-obese patients [I'm not obese], raising questions of mechanisms which might include airways narrowed by edema, hypertrophy, fibrosis, or excessive mucus, or excessive loss of airway muscular tone in sleep."
I took a sleep apnea (at home) test about 5 years ago and was told there weren't enough incidents to diagnose it, but since then things got worse, and I also developed some GERD at night, so I tried sleeping upright (I have one of those large wedge pillows that didn't work for back pain). I noticed that it not only seemed to help with GERD (which I don't have at all any more), but also I was waking up gasping for breath or feeling like I "got the wind knocked out of me." I have also noticed the hypnic jerks are much less severe and much less common as well. It does take a few days to get used to sleeping upright, and I had to experiment with different pillows for support, but at this point I would dread sleeping while lying down. I tried doing that the other day after sleeping 4 or 5 hours upright, and I woke up breathless (and had that sensation where you think you hear a very loud noise but there wasn't any noise) several times within an hour or two. I'm curious if anyone else has had this kind of experience, and if you have tried something else that worked. Thanks.
