I have suspected for a while that I have sleep apnea because of occasionally waking up gasping for air, very restless sleep with many wakeups during the night, lack of restorative sleep, etc. I really don't want to go for a sleep study unless I really have to, so I recently purchased a sleep strip which gave a reading of "3 = apnea detected". Then I purchased a CMS50E finger oximeter. Last night, the oximeter report showed that I had 8 SpO2 events and 119 pulse events. One of the events showed an SpO2 level of 84 for about a minute. For the first part of that event, my pulse rate was at 140. I have atrial fibrillation that was treated by ablation about 2 years ago. I still have episodes of AFib, but nothing like before the ablation, i.e., the episodes last for short periods (seconds or minutes) rather than hours.
My question: Is it possible that the fall in SpO2 is related only to the AFib and not sleep apnea? Would a sleep study be useful for this type of problem? Would a CPAP help with this type of problem?
I am female, slim, otherwise healthy.