Everything You Should Know About Sleep Apnea and How to Treat it

Symptoms of Sleep Apnea Plus How to Diagnose and Treat it

Complaints about snoring by your partner shouldn’t be brushed off. Sleep apnea, a condition that can cause snoring, is a potentially serious sleep disorder that can affect your breathing and can lead to fatigue.?

What is Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that causes your breathing to repeatedly stop and start. If you snore loudly and feel tired even after a full night of sleep, you may have sleep apnea.

There are three main types of sleep apnea. These include:

• Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA): the more common form; occurs when the throat muscles relax and block the flow of air to the lungs.
• Central Sleep Apnea (CSA): occurs when the brain doesn’t send proper signals to the muscles that control breathing.?
• Treatment-Emergent Central Sleep Apnea: also known as complex sleep apnea; happens when someone has OSA that converts to CSA while receiving treatment for OSA.

Symptoms of Sleep Apnea

The symptoms of obstructive and central sleep apneas overlap, which can make it difficult to determine which type you have. The most common symptoms for both include:

• Loud snoring
• Episodes in which you stop breathing during sleep?
• Gasping for air during sleep
• Awakening with a dry mouth
• Morning headache
• Difficulty staying asleep (insomnia)
• Excessive daytime sleepiness (hypersomnia)
• Difficulty paying attention while awake
• Irritability

Loud snoring can indicate a potentially serious problem, though not everyone with sleep apnea snores. If you have symptoms of sleep apnea, be sure to speak with your healthcare provider to help diagnose any sleeping disorder or type of sleep apnea that you may have.?

Risk Factors

Sleep apnea can affect anyone–including children! However, there are certain factors that can increase your risk.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea Risk Factors:

• Obesity or excess weight
• Neck circumference (thicker necks with narrower airways)
• Narrowed airway
• Being assigned male at birth
• Age (occurs more often in older adults)
• Family history
• Use of alcohol, sedatives, or tranquilizers
• Smoking
• Nasal congestion
• Medical conditions such as congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome, hormonal disorders, prior stroke, and chronic lung diseases such as asthma.?

Central Sleep Apnea Risk Factors:

• Age (middle-aged and older)
• Being assigned male at birth
• Heart disorders (congestive heart failure)
• Using narcotic pain medicines
• Having had a prior stroke

Complications from Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea isn’t just a disorder that causes snoring. It can have some serious health consequences and complications if left untreated.

OSA Complications:

• Daytime fatigue: repeated awakenings can lead to low quality sleep, drowsiness, fatigue, and irritability. Over time, the lack of good sleep can lead to falling asleep during the day and an increased risk of motor vehicle or workplace accidents. It can also lead to moodiness and depression.
• High blood pressure
• Type 2 diabetes
• Metabolic syndrome: this disorder includes high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol levels, high blood sugar, and an increased waist circumference, which is linked to higher risk of heart disease.?
• Complications with medicines and surgery: certain medications and general anesthesia can pose some issues. People with sleep apnea might be more likely to have complications after major surgery.
• Liver problems
• Sleep-deprived partners

CSA Complications:

• Fatigue: severe fatigue, daytime drowsiness and irritability, as well as difficulty concentrating.?
• Cardiovascular problems: such as sudden drops in blood oxygen levels. Combined with underlying heart disease issues, these repeated multiple episodes of low blood oxygen worsen prognosis and increase the risk of irregular heart rhythms.?

Diagnosing Sleep Apnea

If your doctor believes you have sleep apnea, you are likely to be referred to a sleep disorder center for further evaluation. These evaluations involve overnight monitoring of your breathing and other body functions during sleep. Home sleeping tests might also be an option. Tests to detect sleep apnea include:

• Nocturnal polysomnography: This test requires being hooked up to equipment that monitors your heart, lungs, and brain activity. It also looks at breathing patterns, arm and leg movements, as well as blood oxygen levels during sleep.?
• Home sleep tests: these simplified tests usually measure heart rate, blood oxygen level, airflow, and breathing patterns.?

If CSA is suspected, your healthcare provider is more likely to refer you to a sleep center for evaluation. Portable monitoring devices can sometimes miss sleep apnea, so your doctor may still recommend polysomnography even if your home test results are within the standard range.?

If you have obstructive sleep apnea, your health care provider may refer you to an ENT (ear, nose, and throat) specialist to rule out blockage in your nose and throat. An evaluation by a cardiologist or a neurologist might also be necessary to look for causes of central sleep apnea.?

Treating Sleep Apnea

Treating sleep apnea depends on the severity of the disorder. For milder cases, a doctor may only recommend lifestyle changes, such as losing weight or smoking cessation. It could also include changing the position you sleep in. If you have nasal allergies, your provider may recommend treatment for your allergies.?

If these measures don’t improve your symptoms or if your apnea is moderate to severe, there are a number of other treatments available, including devices that can help open a blocked airway or surgery.

The most commonly known treatment for obstructive sleep apnea is a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure). This is a mask hooked up to a specialized machine that delivers air pressure while you sleep, helping to keep your upper airway passages open.?

While CPAP is the most common and reliable treatment method, many patients find it cumbersome or uncomfortable. If you find the mask uncomfortable, speak with your healthcare provider to find a different type of mask that may be more comfortable. If a CPAP machine continues to be a problem, there are other airway pressure devices and even oral appliances that help to keep your throat open.?

Surgery may be an option for people with OSA, but often only after other treatments have failed. A three-month trial of other treatments is suggested before considering surgery.?

Therapies for CSA include treating associated medical problems (such as neuromuscular disorders), medicine changes, supplemental oxygen, or an adaptive servo-ventilation (ASV) device. This device learns your typical breathing pattern, then uses that information to regulate your breathing pattern and prevent pauses in your breathing with pressure.?

Final Thoughts

If you are dealing with complaints of snoring from your partner or experiencing fatigue, it is a good idea to speak with your doctor about sleep apnea. Left untreated, you can suffer from mood changes, depression, and severe fatigue, all of which can lead to other serious health concerns due to the prolonged stress of a lack of good sleep.