[Diagnosis] What's your primary cause of apnea?

[someCoolDude]

Hi, I haven't yet been diagnosed with apnea - still waiting for an examination which won't be so fast. I don't smoke and I do sports. I wake up tired and usually have brain fog till the lunch. I believe my jaw opens during the night and somehow closes the air passage. And because of that I (probably) hold my below jaw together with the upper one, which tires (fatigues) my facial muscles tired during the night.

Because my examination is far away, I want to know what is your primary cause for your apnea?
Is it because of allergies - which makes "nasal meat fibers fat"? Perhaps is the long uvula and long soft palate the cause?

[Nightynite]

I blame my apnea on my parents. It a genetics thing I believe or I was dropped when I was an infant.

Seriously, I don’t really know, but I know it happened gradually and I lived with it for years , simply because I didn’t even know apnea was a condition.

[clownbell]

This reminds me of the question about how high is up. There is no single authoritative answer. IMO it is likely that different individuals may have different causes. Among older individuals, the muscles just relax perhaps partly due to age.

[OpalRose]

I couldn't even come close to knowing the cause. But I do know that I suffered with sleep apnea years before being diagnosed.

[SevereApnea]

there are different types of apnea link here Classification

some of it could be purely anatomical Article here but it is a bit technical

some of it could positional please read the link on the Soft Cervical Collar

some of it could be functional/physiological/muscle tone/altered neurological function (rarer)

I like to keep things simple: in the case of true Obstructive Sleep Apnea it can occur...

1. at the nasal level: blocked nasal passages/swollen turbinates/mucosa/polyps (as you hinted at: allergies etc)

2. or at the oropharyngeal level (back of the mouth): (do an internet search for Mallampati score sleep apnea, for example)

3. or airways narrowing due to excessive neck flexion +/- lateral flexion +/- rotation while sleeping.

Or likely a combination of 1, 2 and 3. 

Once you can figure out if you are mainly obstructing at the nose/mouth/neck level that will help guide you in the general direction of mask selection, and whether a soft cervical collar would help or not. Many of us on this forum need and regularly use a Soft Cervical Collar.

While you are waiting for your diagnosis it would not be a bad idea to try a cheap Soft Cervical Collar to see if things improve by preventing your jaw from dropping while you are sleeping.