Living with Sleep Apnea

I have been dealing with this condition for years now and some months or years are worse than others. I have this problem were my heart will all of a sudden out of nowhere no matter what I am doing… start to pound a million beats a minute. Sometimes I can go to bed and a few minutes later I am scared and have these visuals and thinking of the craziest things. My heart starts to pound like crazy.

I’ve been to the ER for this as I felt like my heart was going to not stop beating like crazy and felt like I was dying. I had an ecocardio gram done and other tests and the doctors couldn’t find one thing wrong with me other than a heart murmur and they still weren’t for sure. I even had one doctor think I was on drugs and I laughed in his face and had them do blood test to prove to him I was not on drugs. Sometimes I will just be sitting there and will actually feel an extra heart beat and then I get so scared thinking I am going to have another episode.

I watched a health program on tv about a man that had the same things happen to him and the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. He had a sleep disorder clinic doctor help him… and while he was sleeping, they noticed he would stop breathing for long periods of time which in turn was stress on his heart and linked this to his heart pulpitations, atrial fibulation. He was put on a CPAP machine which blows air into the throat to keep the airway open to breath properly and he has not had an episode since.

I am just wondering if this is true of me or if there is something else wrong with me. I am always tired, depressed, and have to take a nap at noon if I can fit one in. I haven’t had any episodes in months, however… I feel them coming on with the racing thoughs, crazy thoughts, feeling scared or as if someone is going to kill me. Please HELP…TK