SSRI and OSA

[snoozemaster]

Hey,

I’ve stumbled across the following study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, titled:

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor use is associated with worse sleep-related breathing disturbances in individuals with depressive disorders and sleep complaints: a retrospective study

https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.8942

I’ve been taking Prozac for five years. Have been diagnosed with OSA for the last few years. Tried everything, CPAP, surgery, tennis balls. Nothing helped. 

Might this be the reason? What are your thoughts on this? The data is limited, but wondering if anyone else here has already looked into it.

[BoxcarPete]

Having looked into something much like this from a different angle, I can tell you this:

There are many well-established links between depression, anti-depressants, and sleep (especially REM sleep) but the exact physiological pathways are unknown to modern medical science. That's probably not what you wanted to hear, but anti-depressants are a known REM inhibitor and individuals with depression typically show earlier onset of REM sleep and a higher REM fraction of total sleep. That's about all we know for sure on the subject.

I haven't heard of connections to sleep breathing disorders directly before now, but there are well established links to other aspects of sleep already so it's not terribly surprising to me to hear that.