Well, I Have Sleep Apnea But It's Pretty Much Always

Well, I have sleep apnea but it's pretty much always under control by sleeping on my side. I've had panic attacks occasionally. Recently I would wake up with them thinking it really might be a heart attack THIS time. So I had this sleeping with one eye open thing. Not long ago I got over the heart attack fear and the fear of waking up with a panic attack. If I do I do, so what. But this other thing started where I'm just about asleep and I wake up sucking in a quick breath feeling like I wasn't getting one or something. I sort of worked myself up thinking that the apnea was worse and couldn't sleep so I propped myself up and "slept" that way. Not very restful. Which, in turn led to the fear that from fatigue my airways would be so saggy and weakened that it that WAS the apnea, I would doom myself to the same thing happening only I wouldn't wake up and would just die in my sleep. I have no real reason to think this but it would be nice for a pro to be able to tell me that, all things being equal and me representing the situation accurately, that there is no real cause for alarm. I have experienced changing anxiety symptoms over time and have read that this waking up feeling like you weren't getting a breath is fairly common. I understand that apnea needs to be dealt with. I have a mask but haven't been successful using it. I take it off in my sleep. But like I said, sleeping on my side always keeps things pretty clear. My wife is sensitive to snoring and rarely heard me do that anymore. She also has watched me do this suck in thing and said it just sounded like I had gotten startled or something. And who knows that I wasn't dreaming. Anyway. Sorry so long. Please don't scare me, though. This is an anxiety relieving mission I'm on, not wondering what things that COULD be. Also, back in the day of the earlier panic attacks I had times where I was really afraid to go to sleep for fear of my airway relaxing and being aggravated to the point of closing off, so I'm not sure that that thing might not also be me being half trying to go to sleep and half making sure I don't.