Houston Astros Pitcher Josh James Discovered His 'Laziness' Was Actually a Symptom of Sleep Apnea
We all have moments where we feel a little sleepy and lethargic or when we would simply rather not. But, for Houston Astros pitcher Josh James, feeling "lazy" turned out to be a sign of a much bigger issue: sleep apnea.
"I'd wake up in the morning and didn't feel good. Just lazy," James told MLB.com. "I'd have to drink multiple cups of coffee just to get me through the day. I was driving up to Jupiter [Florida, for off-season training] every day and I'd have to drink a cup of coffee in the morning and a cup of coffee on the way back to get me home. I was falling asleep as I was driving. It was rough." He was also rooming with a fellow player who complained about his snoring.
James said he did some research and finally saw a sleep specialist. He was eventually diagnosed with sleep apnea, a sleep disorder that causes you to stop and start breathing while you sleep. He started using a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine, which delivers pressurized air through a mask while he sleeps.
James said he gradually started to feel better. "Just a little bit more refreshed in the morning, a little bit more refreshed about the day, and slowly I started feeling a little bit better every day," he said. "No naps needed. Normally, I'd come home and need a nap, and now I'd come home and be able to do stuff or cut the grass or watch TV."
Now, he still takes naps here and there, but he has much less coffee. He’s also feeling much more energized. "It's the norm for me now," James said.
It’s scary to think you could confuse feeling lazy with having a serious sleep disorder, but it makes sense.
“Many patients will tell me they’ve been feeling lethargic for several years,” Vikas Jain, M.D., sleep medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital and Delnor Hospital in Ill., tells SELF. “But there’s no reason to live with feeling lethargic, fatigued, and miserable.” Patients with sleep apnea feel so wiped out because the condition causes them to repeatedly wake up during the night, Dr. Jain explains.
In the case of obstructive sleep apnea, the most common form of the condition, your throat muscles occasionally relax while you sleep. That could be related to asthma or chronic nasal congestion (both of which may narrow and irritates your airways), large tonsils, or excess weight in certain areas around the upper airways.
When those muscles relax, they may blocks and narrows your airways, causing you to snore, gasp, or choke. This can cause you to briefly wake up during the night in order to get the oxygen you need. It usually happens so quickly that you don't remember it, but it's enough to disturb your sleep patterns and may cause you to feel chronically fatigued and unrested during the day—even if it seems like you got a full night's sleep. So it's not surprising that people with sleep apnea can go years without a diagnosis, Dr. Jain adds.
“Most patients with sleep apnea have no idea they’re doing it,” board-certified sleep medicine doctor, researcher, and neurologist W. Christopher Winter, M.D., of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and author of The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep is Broken and How to Fix It, tells SELF.
There are a few important clues to watch out for that might suggest your tiredness is a sign of sleep apnea.
For one thing, people with sleep apnea might snore, choke, or gasp for air in their sleep, and this can happen anywhere from five to 30 times or more each hour, all night, the Mayo Clinic says. If you sleep alongside someone else or you have a roommate, it’s worth asking them whether they’ve noticed you making these noises at night, sleep specialist Charles Bae, M.D., associate professor of neurology at Penn Medicine, tells SELF.
Another common sign is that you're feeling fatigued constantly—not just having a sluggish, off day here and there. “Generally, everyone will most likely feel a little lethargic from time to time, but usually there is some identifiable cause, like going to bed later than usual or work stress,” Dr. Jain says. “If it’s here and there, that’s one thing. But if you’re consistently feeling sleepy and unrefreshed, having trouble focusing, and want to take a nap in the afternoon pretty consistently, it’s worth seeking a formal evaluation.”
That tiredness is also usually much more significant than what you might feel after, say, a late night spent watching Netflix. “Most people with sleep apnea have an usually high drive to sleep,” Dr. Winter says. “They’ll often say, ‘I’m fine as long as I’m busy.’ But if they sit quietly, read, or drive their car, they struggle to stay awake.”
People with sleep apnea may also wake up with a headache (due to the lack of oxygen they received during the night) or have a dry mouth in the morning because they sleep with their mouth open, Dr. Jain says.
If you suspect you have sleep apnea, it’s a good idea to see your primary care doctor first, Dr. Bae says.
Your doctor will want to listen to your symptoms and may want to run some blood work to rule out other conditions that could make you feel fatigued, like anemia or a thyroid issue, he says. But, if your symptoms do seem to point to sleep apnea, they’ll likely order a sleep study or send you to a sleep medicine specialist who will make an official diagnosis.
Sleep apnea treatments may include addressing an underlying condition (such as asthma), lifestyle changes (such as adjusting your level of physical activity or quitting smoking), as well as using a CPAP machine or another oral device to keep your throat open while you sleep, the Mayo Clinic says. In more severe cases, surgery may be needed.
In general, being treated for sleep apnea should help you feel better in many ways. “Patients will say that they’ve finally got energy and don’t feel the need to sleep every time they sit down because they’re getting real sleep in the night now,” Dr. Winter says. “It can be life-changing.”
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