Obstructive Sleep Apnea

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What is Sleep Apnea?

Sleep Apnea is a very common sleep disorder marked by frequent interruptions in your normal breathing pattern while you sleep. Sleep apnea is prevalent in as many as an estimated 18 to 20 million Americans. According to this statistic approximately 1 in every 15 Americans suffers from sleep apnea.

The word apnea literally means, ‘without breath’. An apnea occurs when your upper throat muscles relax during sleep partially narrowing or completely blocking your airway. When you are awake, your normal muscle tone prevents this from happening.

During an apnea episode, your breathing stops for at least 10 seconds preventing you from getting enough oxygen to the body. This triggers alarms in your brain causing you to briefly arouse in order to reopen your airway and gasp for breath.

A loud snore or snort usually accompanies the reopening of the airway, then normal breathing resumes until you relax into sleep again and the process repeats itself.

People who suffer from sleep apnea stop breathing many times during the night. In order to meet the medical definition, you must have at least 5 of these apnea episodes an hour. Many apnea sufferers have several hundred episodes every night without realizing what is happening.

Worried or frustrated bed partners often bring symptoms of apnea to the attention of a physician, after they have observed their partner stop breathing or snore loudly night after night.

Sleep apnea is potentially dangerous because it often results in a significant drop in blood oxygen levels causing a rise in blood pressure. These repeated episodes of apnea put strain on the heart and lungs causing nightly stress to these vital organs when the body should be resting.

Sleep apnea also leads to excessive daytime sleepiness and complaints of non-restorative sleep. Each apnea causes the brain to briefly awaken to reopen the airway. This can lead to fragmented sleep patterns, periods of insomnia and continued exhaustion upon waking in the morning, despite a full night dedicated to sleep.

Risks Associated withSleep Apnea:

  • Developing cardiovascular disease
  • Stroke
  • Memory loss and unusual forgetfulness
  • Poor work performance
  • Increase in irritably and strain on relationships due to sleep loss.
  • Depression
  • Work and roadway accidents

How Do I Know If I Have Sleep Apnea?

(Do you have any of the following symptoms?)

  • Excessive daytime sleepiness
  • Loud snoring or frequent loud snorts.
  • Gasping or choking during sleep
  • Wake up with a dry mouth and throat
  • Wake up with headaches
  • Depression and increased irritability
  • Frequent waking throughout the night
  • Restlessness during sleep
  • Obesity
  • Large neck or receding chin.
  • High blood pressure

If you are experiencing one or more of these symptoms you may be suffering from sleep apnea and should contact your physician or a sleep specialist.

For more information about the treatment options available for patients suffering from OSA, click here.

Types of Sleep Apnea:

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is the most common type of sleep apnea and occurs when the airway is either partially or completed obstructed by tissue in the back of the throat during sleep. The body continues to try to breath, but little or no air can move past the obstruction. This results in exaggerate body movements, especially in the chest and abdomen as the body fights to take a breath. During this time the oxygen levels in the blood usually decrease. Breathing usually resumes with a loud gasp, snort or body jerk. This process may repeat hundreds of times throughout the night.

Central Sleep Apnea (CSA) is less common than OSA. During CSA the airway is open but the respiratory center of the brain is not sending a signal for the body to take a breath.

Mixed Sleep Apnea (MSA) is a combination of both OSA and CSA. A mixed apnea event starts as a central apnea with no effort to breathe being made, however midway through the event, effort resumes but the airway remains blocked by an obstruction.

It is not uncommon for these three types of sleep apnea to occur together throughout the night for some patients.

Complex Sleep Apnea (CompSA) is a less common type of sleep apnea seen in patients with OSA. When treatment with PAP therapy is used, the respiratory center of the brain fails to send a signal to the body to breathe causing central apnea. This may happen immediately when PAP is started, or later when PAP is at higher pressures.

CompSA can develop as a responce to CPAP and Bi-PAP therapies, and thus usually requires treatment with more specialized PAP therapies.

For more information about the treatment options available for patients suffering from OSA, click here.

Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome:

One variation of sleep apnea is called upper airway resistance syndrome (UARS). Unlike sleep apnea shere the upper airway is obstructing the flow of air, during UARS the airway gradually narrows during sleep. During these periods of airway narrowing, the brain frequently arouses from sleep, causing fragmented sleep patterns, though the oxygen levels in the blood do not decrease.
UARS sufferers often have the same symptoms as those with apnea, including daytime fatigue, loud snoring and morning headaches.

For more information about the treatment options available for patients suffering from OSA, click here.