Sleep Apnea

Sleep Apnea is a serious disorder where breathing repeatedly starts and stops while a person is sleeping. Key risk factors  include obesity, advancing age, and a history of snoring, and the condition is more common in men than women. Symptoms often include loud snoring and feeling overly tired even after  getting a full  night’s rest. Treatment may include  lifestyle changes, including weight loss, and using a breathing assistance device while sleeping at night, like a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine and other devices.

Apnea is a Greek word that literally translates to without breath and there are three types of Apnea, namely central, complex and obstructive. The last is known as OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnea) and is most common. Obesity is usually the cause, linked to the soft tissues at the back of the throat and mouth. During sleep, when the tongue and throat muscles are relaxed, excess fat constricts  the airway, decreasing lung function. Common symptoms include stopping of breath while sleeping, loud snoring, awakening with mouth dryness, gasping for breath while sleeping, morning headaches, insomnia and persistent fatigue despite full night’s rest.

The main types of sleep apnea are:

• 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