Can you relate?

Hi everyone,

I only found this subreddit a few days ago, partly through ChatGPT and partly through videos about airway issues and narrow jaws. And honestly, it feels a bit surreal that I might finally be looking in a direction that actually makes sense.

I’m 30 now, but I’ve been dealing with fatigue for as long as I can remember. Even as a teenager — and probably already before that — I would wake up feeling exhausted. Mornings have always been a struggle. For the past 10 years, I’ve basically needed coffee right away just to get going. Going outside early or getting sunlight helps a bit, but it never really feels like I’m actually well-rested.

What’s been confusing is that I never seriously questioned my sleep. I fall asleep very quickly at night, and I don’t randomly fall asleep during the day. So I always assumed: my sleep must be fine.

But during the day, things don’t feel fine at all. I often feel foggy, overwhelmed by normal tasks, and I get these dips in energy — especially in the afternoon — sometimes with heart palpitations. There’s also this underlying anxious or “wired” feeling instead of calm energy. Over time, this really started affecting my ability to function, especially when it comes to work and daily responsibilities.

Because of that, I spent the last few years mainly looking for answers on the emotional side. I’ve done quite a lot of therapy, trying to understand whether this was trauma-related or psychological. And I do believe there is a real emotional component.

At the same time, I’m starting to see that my physical state might be amplifying everything. When I’m tired, I become much more sensitive, more irritable, and more easily overwhelmed. I’ve made choices in my life — like avoiding busy environments or pressure — partly because I simply didn’t have the energy to handle them. And that has been hard to admit.

Recently, I started looking more into airway and sleep-related issues, and some things suddenly stood out. I grind my teeth (confirmed by my dentist, with visible damage), and I seem to have a relatively narrow jaw with limited space for my tongue. Nasal breathing sometimes feels restricted, and interestingly, when I try to place my tongue on my palate, breathing actually feels harder instead of easier. Breathing exercises like Wim Hof sometimes temporarily improve things, which made me question what’s going on.

Looking back, there are also things from earlier in life that might be relevant. I had frequent ear infections as a child, my tonsils were removed, and I had speech therapy when I was young. Later on, I was diagnosed with mastocytosis (so issues with histamine and the immune system), and I’m also hypermobile.

What feels strange to me is that I always thought I was breathing “normally”, so something like UARS never even crossed my mind. None of the therapists I’ve seen ever mentioned anything like this either.

Right now, I’m planning to do a sleep study and get a better look at my airway and jaw structure. But before that, I was really curious to hear from others.

Does anyone recognize themselves in a story like this? Especially the combination of long-term fatigue, anxiety or a wired feeling, not feeling rested, but also not necessarily fitting the classic sleep apnea picture?

I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences.