For decades, busy accountant Jenny Potts felt tired all the time.
"It was a struggle to try to put in a full day," Potts said.
She'd fight to stay awake, but had no idea what was wrong.
"Driving back and forth, I would get to the point where I would have to pull over on the side of the road and almost take a cat nap," Potts explained.
After enrolling in a sleep study, the diagnosis finally came: severe sleep apnea, a disorder that causes you to stop breathing during the night.
"Often, women will complain that they can't stay asleep throughout the night. They wake up frequently throughout the night," said Dr. Kelly Brown, assistant professor of neurology and sleep medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
While up to 15 percent of women have sleep apnea, Brown said it's often undiagnosed.
"I was told 20-30 occurrences in an hour is sleep apnea. I had about 124 occurrences in an hour," Potts said.
"The danger is that there are a lot of medical disorders that are associated with obstructive sleep apnea," Brown explained.
Untreated, it can increase your risk for high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke and diabetes.
"Fifty percent of atrial fibrillation patients have untreated sleep apnea, and about 50 70 percent of patients with stroke have sleep apnea," Brown said.
And get this: "Patients with poor sleep are more prone to certain cancers, particularly breast cancer," Brown said.
Treatments range from losing weight to C-Pap therapy. That's what worked for Potts.
"I'm just totally refreshed," Potts said, and focusing on work.
One interesting way Brown said she's finding people coming into her office wondering if they might have sleep apnea has to do with the popularity of activity trackers like the fit-bit or jawbone, which monitor your sleep patterns.
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