My brother has not been diagnosed, but he has it. The reason he has not been diagnosed is that he will not go to a doctor. He has had bad experiences with doctors and hospitals in the past. He has a cyst that he had to get checked out and removed before joining the Navy. Multiple doctors looked at and each one sent him to a "specialized" doctor, and the specialized doctors sent him to other doctors. He still has not gotten the cyst removed. Needless to say, he hasn't joined the Military. I know all of this is a pain for him, but it doesn't excuse not going to get checked out for something else that is potentially a serious health concern.

My brother. Maybe the smoking has something to do with his sleep apnea... I don't know:
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Basically, my brother doesn't deal with it. He sleeps in a recliner in my mom's basement, which possibly worsens the sleep apnea. I'll be sitting in a chair next to him while he sleeps and I'll hear him take a huge, panicked breath in. He'll usually wake up when he hasn't been breathing for a while, which is good. I'm not sure if everyone is so lucky. But it scares me nonetheless. He just rolls over and goes back to sleep. He's a worrier too, more so than myself. So, he doesn't go to the doctor, lets his sleep apnea get worse, gets stressed about it, stays up for long hours, and the sleep apnea gets worse. I'm guessing that this is the LEAST effective way of dealing with the disorder!

There's not much else I can do except for encourage him to go see someone, and to stay next to him while he sleeps. I have been sleeping in the recliner next to him in case something happens. I don't like being away from him when he sleeps. As I said, I'm a worrier :). But thanks for the question. I think I should point out some of the things you said up there to my brother. There's no way of shocking someone into reality like giving them something to be afraid of!

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Personally, I don't know of someone close to me which has been diagnosed with Sleep Apnea. Accordingly, sleep apnea has been linked to people which suffer from heart diseases. On the celebrity side, according to stanford.wellsphere.com, it was posted that:

"Regis Philbin, the well-known talk show celebrity, just announced on The View that he is using CPAP for his newly diagnosed obstructive sleep apnea. It’s also known that he has heart disease and has undergone heart bypass surgery in the past.

Rosie O’ Donnell revealed the fact that she’s also on CPAP, and the general public got more educated."

One of the suggested ways to detect early diagnosis of sleep apnea is "some kind of mandatory screening program." And to encourage public awareness, famous celebrities are urged to share their experience if they have this disorder to have the public more aware.

Yes--me. I was overweight and -They told me I was stopping breathing something like 80 times AN HOUR. They put a CPAP machine on me and it droped to what I assume is an acceptable 11.
I had surgery that basically bumped up my palate. It didn't help much- Tthe problem was the throat closing off because the muscles relaxed enough to block my airway in my sleep..

I was prescribed a CPAP machine, and I began to sleep much better.

My husband is diagnosed with sleep apnea. He was snoring and stopping breathing at night. I read an article about sleep apnea and took him to the doctor. The doctor sent him to a sleep clinic. He has the CPAP machine now. One time, before getting the machine, he was almost into an accident as if he fell asleep on the road for a few seconds. That terrified us. He also started doing exercising. Now he sleeps well. Me too.