I know sleep apnea is harmless but there could be compilation like heart problems, diabetes, daytime fatigue and high blood pressure if it goes untreated.
But have doctors and scientists found out what causes sleep apnea and proper test other than booking into over night sleep clinic?
Because from what I understand sleep apnea is harmless. What happens is the person’s breathing stops during the sleep many times in the night there can be compilation like heart problems, diabetes, daytime fatigue and high blood pressure if it goes untreated.
There is no test to know you have it the only way is to book in an over night sleep clinic for proper diagnosis.
One of the article say it could be throat muscles relax way too much causing breathing to repeatedly stops and starts doing many times or the brain doesn’t send proper signals to the muscles that control breathing where by breathing repeatedly stops and starts doing the night many times.
Where did you get the idea that sleep apnea is harmless? “Heart problems, diabetes, daytime fatigue and high blood pressure” are not the sniffles and are often deadly. It is treated as a serious condition that often requires an overnight stay in a hospital to diagnose it properly because it is one.
I have moderate sleep apnea myself. Some of it is anatomical but it can’t always be fixed even with surgery. I had radical ENT reconstructive surgery about 12 years ago (uvula, tonsils and adenoids removed as well as internal nose reconstruction). It worked some but not completely which is usually the case. I have a ResMed Autoset S9 CPAP that I love though. I look at it like a spa treatment every night. The nasal pillows only take a second to slip on and it constantly adjusts the pressure so that my airways stay open. I can sleep without it but I prefer to have it on.
The root causes of sleep apnea vary. Some of it is an anatomical flaw, it can be due to obesity and there are neurological factors as well. It isn’t something you can just wish your way out of however. I am just thankful that CPAP technology has gotten so user friendly and comfortable over the past decade.
If you suspect you or someone you know has sleep apnea, you need to get it treated. Left untreated, it can cause chronic health problems or even sudden death. Modern CPAP machines can instantly fix almost 100% of people that suffer from it. You will get better sleep than you have in years.
A sleep study is the test. There’s nothing like a blood test because it isn’t caused by a pathogen or genetic condition or blood chemistry. There is no single cause, it’s a physical condition with a number of causes, but a frequent reason is the anatomy of large animals which have relatively weak throats because of common physiology that does not scale up efficiently. However there are a number of other reasons why breathing may stop or become shallow more than 5 times an hour while sleeping which is the criteria for a diagnosis of sleep apnea.
May be harmless is not the right word here but it is not emergency where you could die in your sleep where you will stop breathing and your body will not start breathing. From my understanding sleep apnea breathing repeatedly stops and starts many times in night it not like it will not start and you die in your sleep.
No, you can certainly die directly and suddenly from sleep apnea. People just stop breathing in their sleep and don’t ever start back again. It is like SIDS for adults. Your logic is more than a little strange. Most chronic conditions don’t kill you right away. They may be a contributing factor to a premature death or they may just negatively affect quality of life. Sleep apnea definitely qualifies for the latter even if you die from something else.
As to the meaning of “root causes may vary”, I already told you some of them. I have had it my whole life because it is a personal anatomical problem. It is just a design flaw in my windpipe; it collapses when I sleep and I feel like I am being smothered repeatedly many times an hour. The benefit is that I can hold my breath for an unusually long time when I am awake.
Other people get it because they become obese. That may be able to be reversed somewhat if they lose weight. Alcohol and other drugs can contribute to it as well. There are also neurological factors. Some people just can’t maintain a healthy breathing rhythm during certain stages of sleep.
Sleep apnea is a fairly common problem but it is much more serious than you are making it out to be. Luckily it is treatable no matter what the cause. Modern CPAP machines aren’t the only solution but they are almost always guaranteed to work people that use them correctly.
Sometimes to the point of not having it any more. Snoring is another sleeping issue which can be aggravated by obesity to the point of being considered a clinical condition (that is, not just a bother but a serious medical problem) and go down to normal levels when the excess weight is lost; sometimes it is linked to sleep apnea, sometimes it is due to other reasons.
“Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a relatively common condition where the walls of the throat relax and narrow during sleep, interrupting normal breathing.”
There is a means to test for sleep apnea at home. I was evaluated in this way. I had to secure a pulse oximeter to my finger and tape a flow meter (that looks like a nasal canula) to my face. I wore an elastic strap around my chest that connected to some sort of sensor that determined if my chest was expanding as I breathed.
A stay in a sleep clinic is not necessarily required, though the treating physician may prefer evaluation in a sleep clinic.
One of the most radical operative cures for sleep apnea is the mild-sounding hyoid suspension. All that’s done is that your throat is slit ear-to-ear like a pirate attack, and “the base of the tongue and other soft tissues around the throat [are pulled] forward by anchoring the neck’s hyoid bone to the thyroid cartilage (the “Adam’s apple”). The hyoid suspension surgery expands and stabilizes the airway, making it less likely that the tongue will collapse into the airway and obstruct breathing during sleep—known as sleep apnea, or obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).”
You wake up with a large bloody bandage around your throat oozing blood. A grand Halloween costume, but one that tends to discomfit visitors. It might also discomfit you if all that oozing blood winds up trapped under the skin and bulges out like a goiter, necessitating a series of needles stuck into it to withdraw the gathered blood.
If you don’t like the sound of that, you’ll be less likely to like the sound of this: Sleep Apnea May Be Deadly:
Get treated. There are a series of less drastic steps before a hyoid suspension. Explore any or all of them.
Obstructive sleep apnea: your throat tends to collapse when you fall asleep, and/or your tongue/palate falls back, obstructing the airway. Stop breathing, wake up, start breathing, fall asleep, repeat ad nauseam.
Central sleep apnea: your brain just isn’t all that excited about keeping the breathing process going once you fall asleep. Even without airway obstruction, breathing can become shallow or stop altogether, forcing you to wake up to begin consciously breathing again.
Sleep apnea isn’t always so apparent. I think in most cases it is marked by the sudden gasp when breathing returns but it can be silent and only detected after symptoms such as extreme fatigue or erythrocytosis are detected.
Specifically, the study showed significant improvement in sleep apnea ***symptoms ***and frequency of snoring, and a trend of decreased loudness of snoring.
They didn’t actually repeat sleep studies, but had people scored on a sleepiness scale (Epworth). Snoring was judged subjectively by the patient(??!!) and/or partner.
Anyways, this lends support to the notion of pharyngeal tone as being one important mechanism of sleep apnea.
I’m lucky enough to be diagnosed with both. Yea me! For me OSA is the larger factor. Certainly weight and age play a role but the primary cause is structural - small lower jaw, small mouth overall, and a large tongue particularly towards the back of my mouth are just some of the issues there. The CSA my sleep doctor says is less than 10% of my apnea problem. I’ve been 100% compliant with CPAP therapy for many years now but still wish there were less severe surgical solutions to correct it. Hyoid suspension or maxillomandibular advancement surgery are just not something I would want to pursue at this point.
What are you talking about!?! It is exactly like you will “not start breathing again and you die in your sleep.” Bolding added is mine. That is the very real danger of not getting treated. You usually do start breathing again, until you don’t.
Many people with sleep apnea stop breathing and that is it, they die without starting to breathe again. Like my friend did earlier this year. Had apnea, died in his sleep. You need some better understanding.
Sleep Apnea makes the wee hours of the morning sudden-death time.
I haven’t been diagnosed, but I’ve experienced both. I don’t get into the repetitive asleep/almost-awake/asleep cycle (according to my wife), but I have at times snorted myself awake gasping for breath (OSA) because my breathing stopped completely. Other times I’ve felt my breathing dwindle away as I passed through sleep twilight (CSA); eventually I would be starved for air, waking up completely to take a deep breath or two before trying to get to sleep again, usually repeating that cycle many times. Happens some nights, not others, thankfully quite rare. No idea what triggers it.
It’s quite normal to happen less than 5 times an hour and intermittently. The problems occur when it’s frequent, interrupting sleep cycles and starving the body of oxygen.
For me OSA is the larger factor. Certainly weight and age play a role but the primary cause is structural - small lower jaw, small mouth overall, and a large tongue particularly towards the back of my mouth are just some of the issues there. The CSA my sleep doctor says is less than 10% of my apnea problem. I’ve been 100% compliant with CPAP therapy for many years now but still wish there were less severe surgical solutions to correct it. Hyoid suspension or maxillomandibular advancement surgery are just not something I would want to pursue at this point.