Answer: How do you know you have sleep apnea? The only way to know for sure is to have a sleep study (polysomnography) done. There, a sleep technologist will monitor your oxygen saturation, breathing, heart rate, brain wave activity, etc. and see if you are having apneas (total breathing stoppages) or hypopneas (partial breathing difficulty) and how it's affecting your REM sleep. As for OTC remedies, you can try breathe-right strips to open your nasal passages wider, but if you really do have sleep apnea, the problem lies in the tissue in your throat closing up, not your nose. Taking sleeping pills or alcohol _won't_ help. Usually it makes it worse. The problem with apnea is that the tissues and muscles of your throat close up from being relaxed, and taking sedatives will only serve to relax those muscles more and make your sleep worse. Go see a sleep doc, get the test and if you have apnea, go get a CPAP machine. The sleep test is a pain and they hook you up with a lot of electrodes to monitor you, but you'll at least know why you are having problems. You can decide then if you want to go further with your treatment. I've been using a CPAP for 2 years now and it's just become part of the routine.