If you wake up with headaches sometimes, you may have sleep apnea, even if you do not snore or choke or wake up. The only visible sign may be silent breathing pauses during sleep. Do not assume your doctor will ask you the right questions to find out if this is your problem. The high blood pressure I have had for 10 years with the headaches is potentially another symptom, and my doctor never asked. I was diagnosed because: 1) My husband saw me stopping breathing/breathing very shallowly, and 2) I used a cheap pulse-oximeter from amazon.com that has an alarm that goes off when you have low oxygen, and taped it on my hand overnight, and sure enough, it showed drops to 85% and even 80%. Immediately my doctor approved a sleep study to officially diagnose apnea. In case you don't know, sleep apnea over time leads to multiple organ failure, hear attacks, and reduced brain function, which I *do not* need... ;-) and is extremely hereditary, so my siblings should suspect it also. I would like to think CPAP and more oxygen will fix my lifelong brain farts, but I'd be happy to just not to get (much) fartier, too...
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