sleep apnea treatment

If you’ve been diagnosed with sleep apnea, then you defiantly need to think about the right treatment. Doctors who diagnosed you should tell you what to do. In case your family member noticed you have sleep disorders and you concluded it’s sleep apnea, then you can seek help yourself. In some cases, doctor’s treatments do not work effectively and you may need to search for a solution yourself.

Today we’ll discuss what sleep apnea is and how to treat it effectively. Untreated sleep apnea can later cause more serious problems, so you need to take care of it.

What is Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea is a condition, when during the sleep you have breath pauses. Pauses in breathing can last from a few seconds to minutes. It may repeat from 1 to 100 times per hour. It is a serious sleep disorder and should be treated as soon as spotted. But here comes another problem. It’s almost impossible to notice it. It happens only when you sleep. And when you wake up, you don’t know you had breath pauses. That’s why it’s noticed almost always when a family member notices you’re having difficulties breathing.

For years or decades even it can go unnoticed. But sleep apnea does have side effects. After years you may start feeling fatigue, tired during the day and sleepy all day long.

What happens during sleep apnea?

Basically air that you breathe in and out when sleeping, is partially or fully blocked. This makes it harder for you to breathe the air in. Sometimes you can hear snoring sounds, sometimes not. It is more common in people who are overweight, but happen to anyone, even children.

The best example to look at in order to understand how sleep apnea occurs, watch the flash video on a National Heart Lung and Blood Institute’s website:

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/SleepApnea/SleepApnea_WhatIs.html

You can clearly see how air stops flowing into the lungs when the passage is blocked. That’s why sometimes the best sleep apnea treatment is special jaw support that prevents your jaw from blocking the air flow.

What are Different Types of Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea is classified into 3 distinct categories:

• obstructive sleep apnea
• central sleep apnea
• complex sleep apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea is the most common one. It is what we explained above. When the air can’t flow through, you get pauses in breathing. It is called obstructive sleep apnea. This may happen because of smaller nasal channels, your jaw, your weight. But it’s physical condition.

Central sleep apnea is when the airflow is paused because of your brain. When your brain can’t signal your body to open up for more air, you get pauses. When the airflow is completely blocked, a person wakes up because brain signals that your body needs to breathe. This may occur because of medications or medical symptoms.

Complex sleep apnea is the combination of both obstructive and central disorders. More people have complex apnea than central. 15% of all sleep apnea cases are complex, 84% obstructive and only 1% central only.

What are the Sleep Apnea Symptoms?

Symptoms include the ones we just mentioned. Sometimes the symptoms of central and obstructive sleep apnea overlap. It makes it harder to spot the real problem. However, the common both type sleep apnea symptoms are these:

• Snoring
• Daytime sleepiness
• Awakening at night with a shortness of breath (may indicate central apnea)
• Waking up with dry mouth or sore throat
• Morning headaches
• Insomnia

You should see a doctor if you spot your partner or yourself snoring loudly, having short breath, breathing pauses, daytime drowsiness. Although these symptoms may not seem very serious, they could actually be sleep apnea disorder and treatment is needed in such case. Otherwise, it can lead to worse consequences.

Sleep Apnea Treatment Options

Different types of apnea are treated differently. For example if you have obstructive sleep apnea and you are little overweight, then losing weight may be all you need. Alcohol and sleeping pills should be avoided. Simple thing as sleeping on the belly instead of your back may do the trick for some sufferers.

People who have sinus problems or nasal congestion may use nasal sprays to help prevent sleep apnea. CPAC (continuous positive airway pressure) is sometimes given to patients as a sleep apnea treatment. You put a mask on your face and air is pressured into your breathing passage preventing tissues from collapsing.

Special dental or oral devices are prescribed to patients to prevent apnea. These type of devices prevent your tongue from blocking the airflow into your lungs.

Surgery is the last sleep apnea treatment. It is the last option, because it’s risky, but if nothing else works, then this is your best option. People with small jaws and large tongues or enlarged tonsils may be more prone to sleep apnea and that’s when a surgery is needed.

Sleep apnea treatment is available and you won’t be left behind, but most importantly is to notice and diagnose it first. Fat too many people (12 millions in the US as reported by studies) have sleep apnea disorders. Many people will never find relief, because they don’t notice the discomfort. However, if you notice that some of the symptoms mentioned above are giving you discomfort, it may be connected with sleep apnea and a visit to your local doctor could be a good idea.

It’s the most common type of sleep apnea disorder. When your airflow is blocked, you create pauses in your breathing. Sometimes, it can lead to complete blockage of breathing.

This can happen because of many reasons. Your bone structure even. If your jaw is smaller than usual and you tongue is large, then it can block the air coming to your throat. Your tonsils or your nose channels can cause obstructive sleep apnea. In many cases, simple treatment is enough. Something like nasal spray or sleeping changes like sleeping on your stomach. Other times, surgery may be needed.

How to Spot the Symptoms?

It’s not easy to spot the symptoms of sleep apnea. As a matter of fact only someone else can do it for you. When you wake up you don’t remember having shortages of breath. During the sleep, your mind rarely awakens from this problem. So unless you have someone with you sleeping who can spot your pauses in breathing it’s hard to diagnose it yourself.

But there are some common symptoms which may help you understand if you have sleep apnea or not.

For adults: If you feel fatigue and sleepy during daytime, it can be a sign already. Many patients risk falling asleep for a short time when driving or doing other activities. This can obviously be dangerous. Morning headaches are another common symptom. If you feel snoring or your partner feels loud snoring that awakens them, then you may need to go to the doctor and consult to figure out if you have obstructive sleep apnea or not.

For Kids: As reported, sleep apnea occurs in about 2% of the children. Some of their symptoms can be different than in adults. For example, they may sleep longer. Harder breathing is another one. Irritability or bed wetting could be associated with sleep apnea.

Obstructive sleep apnea can lead to serious heart problems if not treated. If you are suspecting something, it’s a good idea to go and check with your doctor. If your partner spots the problem, you can try some of the sleep apnea treatments mentioned earlier.

What is a complex sleep apnea?

To answer that question you need to understand what other types of apnea there are. Sleep apnea is a disorder when a person makes pauses in breathing during sleep. Now it can be associated with a few different things. That determines how we treat sleep apnea. This disease is divided into 3 conditions:

• Obstructive sleep apnea – when physically you can’t normally breathe the air in and out while sleeping. Usually you can’t notice it yourself.
• Central sleep apnea – central sleep apnea is when the problem is in your brain, which doesn’t signal to move muscles and breathe the air in.
• Complex sleep apnea – is when you have a combination of both.

It can be diagnosed when CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) masks don’t help. These normally help patients who have obstructive form of apnea. During diagnostics a person may be identified with complex sleep apnea disorder and in that case treatment is needed.

So what is a complex sleep apnea treatment? Patients may be provided with supplemental oxygen to treat this type of apnea. There’s also new type of treatment called ASV (adaptive servo-ventilation), which provides airflow. It is noted to be more effective in preventing central and complex sleep apneas.

It is important to notice your symptoms. Usually you can’t do it yourself, but in some cases you can suspect sleep apnea. For instant, if you wake up with a dry mouth after a sleep. Feel headaches in the morning. Are sleepy all day long. All these little and at first glance meaningless symptom may lead to complex sleep apnea discovery. Many people have this syndrome and you may not be an exception.

So the best suggestion would be to see your doctor if you feel any kind of problems like that. Additionally you could try treating your sleep apnea yourself using devices and masks, but in case it’s complex sleep apnea, treatment may not be successful and you’ll have to visit a doctor anyway.