Sleep apnea is a potentially serious sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts. If you snore loudly and feel tired even after a full night’s sleep, you might have sleep apnea.
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Obstructive sleep apnea, the more common form that occurs when throat muscles relax.
Central sleep apnea, which occurs when your brain doesn’t send proper signals to the muscles that control breathing.
Complex sleep apnea syndrome, also known as treatment-emergent central sleep apnea, which occurs when someone has both obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea.
Symptoms:
The signs and symptoms of obstructive and central sleep apneas overlap, sometimes making it difficult to determine which type you have. The most common signs and symptoms of obstructive and central sleep apneas include:
- Loud snoring
- Episodes in which you stop breathing during sleep — which would be reported by another person
- Gasping for air during sleep
- Awakening with a dry mouth
- Morning headache
- Difficulty staying asleep (insomnia)
- Excessive daytime sleepiness (hypersomnia)
- Difficulty paying attention while awake
- Irritability
If the Sleep Apnea is not treated, it may increase the risk of long term consequences:
- High Blood pressure
- Type 2 diabetes
- Abnormal heart rhythm
- Heart attack
- Heart failure
- Stroke
Treatment
Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) is the recommended treatment for OSA.
CPAP will prevent your upper airway from collapsing during sleep by providing a flow of air through your nose/face using mask.
Regular CPAP use may help reduce the health consequences of OSA.
Sleep apnea is defined as the person’s breathing stops while sleeping or his breathing slows down during sleep. It is a disease that must be treated. The most important symptom is that breathing stops during sleep. Other symptoms can be listed as follows:
- Excessive sweating
- Discomfort during sleep transition and during sleep
- Frequent urination while asleep
- Dry mouth (may be caused by snoring)
- Stomach ailments such as reflux
- Intense headache
- Feeling fatigue when awakening from sleep
- Attention problems
- Depression and mental tension
- The problem of constant sleepiness during the day
It is very important for people with these symptoms to consult a specialist. Sleep apnea is a very important disease and a number of ailments can occur due to this disease. These are:
- Sudden death in sleep
- Heart attack and heart failure problems
- Difficulty in losing weight (especially if the patient is obese)
- Stroke or paralysis
- Loss of sexual desire
- Respiratory failure in lung patients
The above ailments are serious ailments that can be caused by sleep apnea. In these cases, people should definitely apply to a specialist and receive treatment.
In order to understand whether a person has sleep apnea, a sleep apnea test must be performed. In the treatment of severe sleep apnea, CPAP treatment called positive air pressure should be applied.
Polysomnography, called sleep apnea test, is used to measure conditions such as eye movements, heart rate leg movements, measurement of oxygen levels, measurement of brain waves, snoring while the person is asleep. In order to perform a sleep apnea test, a person must spend a night in the sleeping room in the hospital. During the test, cables are connected to various parts of the person’s body and the waves of the person are transferred to the computer during sleep during the night. These records provide the measurement of the sleep parameters of the person. In this way, it can be measured whether the person has sleep apnea and how they function during sleep.
In fact, simple measures may be sufficient to prevent sleep apnea. The most important is weight control. If a person is obese, they should definitely lose weight. In this way, the person may have improved sleep apnea almost in half.
- Avoiding alcohol and smoking
- Not lying on your back
- Avoiding sleeping drugs
- Using tapes or spray for nasal patency can reduce snoring but does not treat sleep apnea
