Sleep Apnea is a sleep disorder that is characterized by interrupted breathing while you’re sleeping. Your breathing stops and disrupted during your sleep which leads to loud snoring and daytime tiredness as well. Sleep apnea also causes serious health problems like high blood pressure and heart disease. Primary snoring is referred to as snoring caused due to consuming alcohol in large quantities, your sleep style, older age, obesity, using antidepressants, or by blocking your throat or nose. Such a type of snoring is caused by vibrations of the tissues in the back of your throat.
However, if you have sleep apnea, you may tend to be restless during sleep.
- Take shallow breaths, gasps, or choke.
- Snore more loudly than those with primary snoring.
- Pause for over 5 seconds while you breathe.
Is Sleep Apnea Dangerous?
According to studies, sleep apnea itself isn’t a serious health disorder but if it is not treated timely, it can increase the risk of dying suddenly than those who don’t. This is because sleep apnea is linked with some serious health conditions including diabetes, stroke, heart troubles, and high blood pressure.
Types of Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea is divided into three types:
Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Most of the people experience symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea. It happens due to repeated, complete or partial blockage of your airways, while you’re asleep. This occurs when the swift tissues at the back of your throat collapse, while muscles in your face and neck relax during your sleep. Your diaphragm and chest muscles have to work harder than normal, during these episodes. This may help to open your airways. To overcome the breathing trouble, you may start to breathe loudly with loud gasps, and your body may jerk. This can lower the flow of oxygen to your vital organs, affect your sleep quality and duration, and result in abnormal heart rhythms.
Central Sleep Apnea: In this type, your airwaves do not get blocked. Instead, it is a neurological disorder because your brain fails to instruct your muscles to breathe. This indicates issues in your respiratory control center. This problem is directly linked to the function of your central nervous system. This type of sleep disorder usually affects people who have neuromuscular troubles like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, those who have heart, kidney, or lung diseases, or those who have had a stroke.
Complex Sleep Apnea Syndrome: This condition indicates the combination of symptoms of obstructive and central sleep apnea. It means at the start, you may have obstructive sleep apnea but over time it turns into the dental type of sleep apnea. But this conversion usually happens when you get treatment, that’s why this is also called treatment-emergent central sleep apnea.
Effects of Sleep Apnea
Stopping breathing due to sleep apnea causes a drop in oxygen levels in your blood. This can trigger a brain reflex that tends to wake you up long enough so that you may start breathing again. The repeated awakenings keep you away from spending enough time in the deep sleep stages. The more your sleep is interrupted, the more will be the condition.
Moreover, losing a good continuous sleep will make you feel tired during the day. You may become less productive at school, office, or workplace, which makes you moody, sad, or irritable for others. This condition makes it hard for you to concentrate and you might become forgetful. This increases the risk of accidents while you’re driving or when you’re at work.
Causes of Sleep Apnea
Type of sleep apnea defines the causes:
Causes of Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Narrowing your airway due to interference with your airflow is the main cause of this type of condition. This type of sleep disorder is also caused by a thick neck, obesity, enlarged tonsils, or adenoids.
Causes of Central Sleep Apnea: This condition happens when anything affects your brain’s control of your breathing and chest muscles. Certain types of hormone levels and health conditions also lead to this sleep condition.
However, recent research also revealed that apnea might run in families.
Risk Factors of Sleep Apnea
Although anyone can be affected by this condition, still there are some factors that put you more at risk, including:
- Nasal congestion.
- Smoking.
- A large neck circumference can make your airways narrower.
- A family history of sleep apnea.
- Older age.
- Being male.
- An inherited narrow airway.
- Large tonsils and adenoids.
- Use of sedatives, alcohol, or tranquilizers.
Certain health conditions, such as a previous stroke, chronic lung diseases like asthma, Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes, hormonal disorders, high blood pressure, and PCOS.
Symptoms of Sleep Apnea
People often overlook the symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea but their bed partners often make them aware of the condition. The commission symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea are:
- Headaches.
- Snoring.
- Sexual dysfunction.
- Sleepiness or tiredness during the day.
- Depression or anxiety.
- Night sweats.
- Waking up often at night leads to restlessness while sleeping.
- Forgetfulness or crankiness.
- Trouble concentrating.
- Waking up suddenly after choking or gasping.
If you are a victim of central sleep apnea, you may wake up a lot which may seem like insomnia. You also may have a gasping or choking sensation on waking up.
Symptoms of Sleep Apnea in Women
According to research, women may be less likely than men to snore, while experiencing symptoms of apnea. Women usually experience the following signs of sleep apnea:
- Trouble sleeping leads to frequent waking up during the night.
- Depression or anxiety attacks.
- Fatigue or tiredness.
- Headaches, often in the morning.
- Daytime drowsiness.
Symptoms of Sleep Apnea in Children
Its symptoms are usually not so obvious in children. But they include:
- Hyperactivity or problems focusing at school.
- Often moving their arms and legs during sleep.
- Sweating a lot at night.
- Trouble Swallowing.
- Sluggishness or sleepiness which leads to laziness in the classroom.
- Loud snoring.
- Bed-wetting.
- Heartburn.
- Unusual sleeping positions.
- Sweating a lot at night.
- Poor academic performance.
- Mouth breathing during daytime.
- An inward movement of the rib cage while inhaling.
Diagnosis of Sleep Apnea
Your sleep history and sleep trouble symptoms will help your healthcare provider to diagnose the condition. Your healthcare provider may ask your bed partner about your symptoms, because sometimes you aren’t aware of them. Doctors try to find out if:
- There is a disturbed sleep history in your family.
- You have experienced any condition linked to sleep disorder, such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, or atrial fibrillation.
- You take any medications or drugs that could affect your sleep quality.
- You’ve traveled to places with altitudes higher than 6000 feet or more.
If your doctor suspects you have sleep disorder, they may refer you to a sleep specialist to get effective treatment for sleep disorders. They may ask you to visit a sleep clinic so that sleep studies may be done there.
Sleep Studies
This is the most effective way to diagnose sleep disorder. This type of study can be done in different ways:
Overnight Study or Polysomnogram: For this test, you have to stay for a night at the clinic. This is a thorough test in which you’re hooked up to sensors that check not only your breathing but also your heart, lungs, and brain activity along with the movements of your limbs. A sleep technologist monitors the test carefully.
Home Testing: A simple breathing monitor is used for this test. You may wear this breathing monitor while sleeping at your best at home. The monitor helps to track your breathing patterns, heart rate, and blood oxygen levels so that your doctor may diagnose the breathing issues during your sleep.
Treatment of Sleep Apnea
Although, there is no exact cure for this condition, still you may have heard about some ways to reduce or get rid of its symptoms. You may contact your sleep specialist to find out the best treatment based on how severe your condition is. For mild conditions, you may ask to make some lifestyle changes, including losing weight, treating nasal allergies, or stopping smoking. If such steps fail to ease your symptoms, or you experience moderate to severe sleep apnea symptoms, your doctor may recommend other treatment options.
Sleep Apnea Masks: This is a special type of device that is used to treat sleep disorder. This is a mask that you wear over your face every night which delivers air into airways. If you feel uncomfortable while wearing the mask, talk to your doctor about other options.
Auto-Positive Airway Pressure Machine: This machine is used to adjust the air pressure automatically when you sleep. IoT may help if you only need help breathing while you’re in certain sleep positions during certain stages of sleep.
Continuous Positive Airway Pressure: This is a well-known machine that blows air into your airways through a mask that covers your nose and mouth only. This helps keep your upper airways open.
Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure: This machine is a little different from the CPAP machine because in contrast to the CPAP device. This machine uses greater force as you inhale. This works better for some individuals.
Adaptive Servo-Ventilation (ASV): This is a modern computerized device that observes your breath pattern. Then customizes its air pressure levels to normalize your breathing rate. This seems a more effective remedy for complex sleep disorder as compared to other forms of positive air pressure masks. However people with central sleep apnea or advanced heart failure cannot use this.
Oral Appliances: Sleep mouth guards or tongue-retaining devices are also used to treat sleep disorder. These devices are worn by the patients to keep their throats open. Although positive air pressure masks are effective, oral appliances are easier to use. Your dentist may help you to choose the best one according to your symptoms.
Supplemental Oxygen: Central sleep apnea indicates that you may need extra oxygen when you sleep. Many forms of oxygen and devices can deliver a maximum amount of oxygen to your lungs during your sleep.
Treatment for Other Medical Problems
Central sleep apnea is associated with neurotransmitter disorders or heart diseases, if you treat these conditions, you may also ease your sleep disorder symptoms. The treatment options for such medical conditions include:
Medications: Although there is no FDA-approved medicine specifically to treat sleep apnea. However, doctors sometimes prescribe some drugs to aid breathing in people with central sleep apnea. Sometimes, people start taking opioids or other drugs on their own which can make your symptoms worse. In this situation, you have to talk to your doctor so that he may switch to different drugs.
Surgery: In case of failure of other treatment options. Your doctor may suggest surgery. But it would be suggested if you have already tried all other treatment options for at least three months or if you experience jaw structure problems. Possible procedures for this purpose include:
Tissue Shrinkage: In this procedure, doctors use radio-frequency waves to shrink tissues in the rear of your mouth and at the back of your throat.
Jaw Repositioning: Your jaw is moved forward through surgery to make more room behind your palate and tongue for smooth airflow.
Nerve Stimulation: This is an outpatient procedure, in which the doctors implant a device in your chest that uses electrical impulses to stimulate the nerve that controls your tongue movements. This keeps your tongue from blocking your airway.
Tissue Removal: Excess tissues at the back of your mouth and top of your throat make it difficult to breathe smoothly in a lying position. These excessive tissues are removed through a minor surgery. Sometimes, tonsils and adenoids are also removed through this method.
Tracheostomy: A very severe sleep apnea is treated through this type of surgery. In this method, a new airway is created by cutting an opening into your neck, then a tube is inserted through which you can breathe. You can cover it during your waking hours but keep it open during your sleep hours to help you breathe.
