Sleep Apnea & Anesthesia Advice

[SarcasticDave94]

In some ways, I'm more at risk than I believe you are regarding being put under. I have pre-existing central apnea; I have a bad habit of stopping breathing in my sleep. That is with or without a vanilla CPAP.

If anything bad is going to happen, the OR is probably the best place for it to take place. That surgical team isn't going to let you die on them. They take their job seriously, and that includes wheeling a live, breathing patient into recovery. Dead patients can't pay their bill.

So relax, take a deep breath and go to surgery. Just make sure you tell them you're a CPAP therapy user and ask beforehand if your machine and mask need to be with you.

[andycc]

Thanks for everyone that posted. It is comforting to correspond with people have have same issues I do.

[JWood]

I recently underwent a 5 1/2-hour procedure under general anesthesia.  My primary care doctor warned me that there could be a problem coming out of the anesthesia.  I wasn't terribly concerned because the doctor doing the procedure is the one that sent me for a sleep study.  My machine had not been delivered at the time of the procedure, so I wasn't able to bring one with me.  The anesthesiologist came and got a full history from me before the procedure, including the OSA and that I had never had general anesthesia before.  I was confident they would handle things during the procedure.  I woke up without a problem.  At one point when I was in the recovery room and wide awake an alarm started going off.  I asked my husband what is was and he said it was my apnea alarm.  I took a deep breath and it stopped.  It started to go off again at one other time and I stopped it immediately by taking a deep breath.  On the whole everything went smoothly.