No Trouble Sleeping » sleep apnea http://www.notroublesleeping.com/ewp No Trouble Sleeping is all about helping people overcome insomnia, sleep better, relax and have more energy. Sat, 27 Feb 2010 05:24:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Sleep Apnea http://www.notroublesleeping.com/ewp/sleepapnea/sleep-apnea http://www.notroublesleeping.com/ewp/sleepapnea/sleep-apnea#comments Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:43:01 +0000 admin http://www.notroublesleeping.com/ewp/?p=119 Click here to view the embedded video.

Sleep apnea is a common disorder in which you have one or more pauses in breathing or shallow breaths while you sleep.

Breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to minutes. They often occur 5 to 30 times or more an hour. Typically, normal breathing then starts again, sometimes with a loud snort or choking sound.

Sleep apnea usually is a chronic (ongoing) condition that disrupts your sleep 3 or more nights each week. You often move out of deep sleep and into light sleep when your breathing pauses or becomes shallow.

This results in poor sleep quality that makes you tired during the day. Sleep apnea is one of the leading causes of excessive daytime sleepiness.

Overview

Sleep apnea often goes undiagnosed. Doctors usually can’t detect the condition during routine office visits. Also, there are no blood tests for the condition.

Most people who have sleep apnea don’t know they have it because it only occurs during sleep. A family member and/or bed partner may first notice the signs of sleep apnea.

The most common type of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep apnea. This most often means that the airway has collapsed or is blocked during sleep. The blockage may cause shallow breathing or breathing pauses.

When you try to breathe, any air that squeezes past the blockage can cause loud snoring. Obstructive sleep apnea happens more often in people who are overweight, but it can affect anyone.

The animation below shows how obstructive sleep apnea occurs. Click the “start” button to play the animation. Written and spoken explanations are provided with each frame. Use the buttons in the lower right corner to pause, restart, or replay the animation, or use the scroll bar below the buttons to move through the frames.

 

The animation shows how air flow to the lungs can be blocked, causing sleep apnea.

Central sleep apnea is a less common type of sleep apnea. It happens when the area of your brain that controls your breathing doesn’t send the correct signals to your breathing muscles. You make no effort to breathe for brief periods.

Central sleep apnea often occurs with obstructive sleep apnea, but it can occur alone. Snoring doesn’t typically happen with central sleep apnea.

This article mainly focuses on obstructive sleep apnea.

Outlook

Untreated sleep apnea can:

  • Increase the risk for high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, obesity, and diabetes
  • Increase the risk for or worsen heart failure
  • Make irregular heartbeats more likely
  • Increase the chance of having work-related or driving accidents

Lifestyle changes, mouthpieces, surgery, and/or breathing devices can successfully treat sleep apnea in many people.

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]]> http://www.notroublesleeping.com/ewp/sleepapnea/sleep-apnea/feed 0 Sleep Apnea http://www.notroublesleeping.com/ewp/sleep-apnea http://www.notroublesleeping.com/ewp/sleep-apnea#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:56:07 +0000 admin http://www.notroublesleeping.com/ewp/?page_id=78 Sleep apnea (apnoea in the UK and Australia)  is a sleep disorder characterised by pauses in breathing or block to airflow during sleep, usually at a minimum of 10 second intervals in between breaths, maybe up to five times in an hour of sleep. This is usually accompanied by loud snoring and as the level of oxygen in the body drops, it is classed as sleep apnea.
 
In people who do not suffer from sleep apnea, breathing is regular. For someone with sleep apnea, their brain seems to have lost the mechanism to breathe, causing anything from minor to major problems for the sufferer.
 
Often a person suffering from sleep apnea is unaware of it but a sleep test called a polysomnogram can determine whether you are a suffer and the extent of such suffering.
 
A sleep apnea sufferer may also snore and become tired during the day due to lack of sleep, which may cause accidents at home or at work or even worse if driving: you could be putting yourself and others in danger due to lack of concentration and crashing, all of this might give you an idea that something is not right.
 
When a person is sleeping they are relaxed and the soft tissue in the throat can relax to such a degree that is causes an obstruction. This is common in people who are overweight and who lack muscle tone. The elderly are also prone to sleep apnea disorders andit is more common in men than women and children. Sleep apnea can be common in premature babies, and they have to be monitored very closely. Thankfully, most babies grow out of the condition, although sudden death syndrome is sometimes thought to be related to sleep apnea.
 
Causes as mentioned already are obesity and age, and other known causes are drinking and smoking.
   
A solution to help reduce symptoms of sleep apnea would be first to reduce alcohol in- take and to stop smoking, lose weight and sleep in a more upright position.
 
Oral appliances or sleep machines can be used whilst sleeping. These machines pump air at a positive pressure into the mouth and nose and help prevent symptoms. However, if the symptoms do not cease with these appliances a more drastic approach would be to have an operation on the throat which tightens the muscle and widens the air way.
 
Problems which can be caused by long term sleep apnea are strokes, heart disease and high blood pressure, depression and irregular heart beat.
 
People who suffer from sleep apena are more at risk of suffering a heart attack, so the seemingly harmless effects of sleep apnea could eventually and tragically be fatal, if not dealt with. So finding a solution is a key to a healthy and happy life for both you and your loved ones.
 
Sleep is something that is essential to our well being and believe it or not, something to relish and enjoy.  
 
 
 
 
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