Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea, also spelled Sleep Apnoea, is a sleep disorder in which pauses in breathing or periods of shallow breathing during sleep occur more often than normal. Each pause can last for a few seconds to a few minutes and they happen many times a night. In the most common form, this follows loud snoring.

People who have sleep apnea experience intermittent episodes of pauses in breathing; the term “apnea” means breathing pauses that last 10 seconds or more, according to the Sleep Foundation. Such moments of apnea occur repeatedly during sleep in people with the condition, causing individuals to partially wake up multiple times during the night as they struggle to breathe. Someone with severe sleep apnea may have these partial arousals from sleep several hundred times a night.

Symptoms of sleep apnoea mainly happen while you sleep.

They include:

• breathing stopping and starting
• making gasping, snorting or choking noises
• waking up a lot
• loud snoring

During the day, you may also:

• feel very tired
• find it hard to concentrate
• have mood swings
• have a headache when you wake up

It can be hard to tell if you have sleep apnoea. It may help to ask someone to stay with you while you sleep so they can check for the symptoms.

Sleep apnoea is usually treated with a mask you wear while you’re asleep (CPAP machine).

If you have been diagnosed with sleep apnoea, there are some things you can do to help.

These may be all you need to do if your sleep apnoea is mild.

Do:

• try to lose weight if you’re overweight
• sleep on your side – try taping a tennis ball to the back of your sleepwear, or buy a special pillow or bed wedge to help keep you on your side

Don’t:

• do not smoke
• do not drink too much alcohol – especially shortly before going to sleep
• do not take sleeping pills unless recommended by a doctor – they can make sleep apnoea worse

There are three types of Apnea, obstructive sleep apnea disorder (OSA/OSD), central sleep apnea disorder (CSA/CSD), complex sleep apnea. The most common type is called obstructive sleep apnea. 

Sleep apnea may be either obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), in which breathing is interrupted by a blockage of air flow, central sleep apnea (CSA), in which regular unconscious breath simply stops, or a combination of the two. OSA has four key contributors; these include “anatomical compromises” like a narrow, crowded, or collapsible upper airway. Or “non-anatomical” ones like an ineffective pharyngeal dilator muscle function during sleep, airway narrowing during sleep, or unstable control of breathing (high loop gain)

In central sleep apnea (CSA), the basic neurological controls for breathing rate malfunction and fail to give the signal to inhale, causing the individual to miss one or more cycles of breathing.

Doctors have more recently identified a third type of sleep apnea called complex sleep apnea, which is a combination of obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea. Patients with this type of sleep apnea may at first seem to have obstructive sleep apnea, but unlike typical patients with obstructive sleep apnea, these patients’ symptoms are not fully addressed with the use of CPAP

This condition can affect anyone, but some things put you more at risk:

• Being overweight
• A large neck circumference that could make your airways more narrow
• A narrowed airway that you inherited or developed from large tonsils or adenoids
• Being male
• Older age
• A family history of sleep apnea
• Smoking
• Use of alcohol, sedatives, or tranquilizers
• Nasal congestion
• Medical conditions such as type 2 diabetes, congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, Parkinson’s disease, PCOS, hormonal disorders, prior stroke, or chronic lung diseases like asthma