This cuaght my attention this morning..

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2008123...iw2pLMJmrVJRIF

Prior to this I was going to pose a question and ask if others had any trouble with sleep apnea, snoring, etc.
HMMM>

Jim, I know that many of us have experienced this REM sleep behavior disorder both before and after Parkinson diagnosis. I certainly have. Eight and a half years post Dx I have it only occasionally.
I am not aware that snoring or sleep apnea is particularly associated with PD.
Robert

I was referring to sleep apnea because I suffer from it. I snore severely and this causes a lot of strain on my heart and body,etc when I am without my CPAP machine. Without this machine I wake up exhausted no matter how long I sleep. My brain no doubt has been hypoxic and I suspect this could worsen my parkinsons. Oddly enough when I get 5-6 hours of sleep with the CPAP on I am refreshed, have an easy time with my meds and cope much better with the day. If I go 8 hrs or more I'm in a rut. Go figure, and around it goes!!!!

I, too, had been wondering about something similar and was intending to bring it up after the holidays. I was going to ask about snoring, in particular. While there is some research on REM problems, I don't find a clearcut examination of simple snoring in Young Onset PD (which I have convinced myself is a separate disorder). My interest is in the possibility of hypoxia given a stiff diaphragm.

So, who snores and who does not? Put me down as a snorer, or so I am told.

Hey, I don't know that the diaphragm gets stiff. The hypoxia results as we are not getting enough oxygen while we sleep because our airway is blocked. The heart speeds up, we breathe more irregulary and eventually wake up to roll over, etc. This results in the excessive daytime sleepiness and all the other problems. We are not getting a restful sleep (think ways to kill brain cells), we are tired during the day at our various occupations and we are raising our risk of heart attack. May I add that this is now a recognized risk factor for heart attack and sudden cardiac death! .

I only recently started wondering how the hypoxia was affecting my brain cells. (the ones that I have left).

Although I have never woken up to my snoring, the guys at the firehouse would go into the TV room to sleep.