I’ve suffered from this most of my life, both while I’m awake and yes during the night I would wake up and my breathing would just stop. People assume that you’re choking on something but thats not it, it literally is just that your windpipe closes and you can’t get a breath to go in or out. My dr a few years ago saw one and put me on inhalers for asthma. I have a brown one (steroid) that I take in the morning to make sure my lungs keep clear, and a blue (ventolin sp?) which has helped during attacks although not always. It is terrifying and I’ve always known that its how I’ll die someday. I’m resigned to that and there are worse ways to die. I got very close once, a few years ago, and started to lose conciousness. What has helped me enormously is that I’ve learned that I have to avoid the panic. When it happens grab hold of something or better still someone’s hand and close your eyes and don’t struggle. Don’t even try to breath for a second then breath in when you’re calm. It’s not easy it’s taken me years but I swear it works, and even helped me avoid an attack a couple of times, honestly. It’s the panic that is your enemy and causes your windpipe to close, even in your sleep. It’s fight or flight = panic = you wake up desperately struggling to breath and making that horrible noise when you are fighting to drag in a breathe. If you can just concetrate very very hard on being calm it will help, your body relaxes and so does the spasm thats closed your windpipe.
As our fellow jellies have said though, see a doctor and explain it all to him, and if he doesn’t get it see another one because not all doctors do. I was lucky that my dr got to see one happening. Hope you get some help honey because it is a truely terrifying, horrid thing to experience. I have a phobia now of choking, even drinking at times is scary in case something happens. Don’t let that happen to you honey, get a dr to help. <throws mountains of hugs> xx