Sleep Apnia

Sleep apnia is a common, though often undiagnosed, sleep disorder in which you stop breathing during the night. Oxygen levels in the blood drop and carbon dioxide levels rise. This causes your heart to pump harder and sometimes to beat irregularly, or even to stop for several seconds. Your diaphragm and chest muscles work harder and your blood pressure rises. Finally, your brain senses that your body is in trouble and wakes you sufficiently for you to breathe and, as you do so, your breathing will often be accompanied by loud snoring.

Who is affected by sleep apnia?
Sleep apnia affects people of all ages, including children, although it is more commonly seen in men over the age of 40. It is also more commonly seen in people who are overweight.

What are the symptoms of sleep apnia?

Loud snoring
Many cases of sleep apnia result from a blockage to the airway caused, at least in part, by excessive tissue at the back of the throat. When your brain awakens you sufficiently to start breathing again you take in a large breath initially and this causes this excess tissue to vibrate, resulting in loud snoring. If you snore it is important to get checked out by your doctor to ensure your snoring is not the sign of sleep apnea.
How to stop snoring

Excessive daytime tiredness
Because your brain wakes you constantly throughout the night to breathe, you are enjoying only very light, fragmented and poor quality sleep, leaving you still tired at the end of your night's sleep. It should be noted that, although the brain wakes you many times during the night, it only raises your level of consciousness sufficiently for your to breathe. As a result, you are often not aware of this and will wake in the morning believing that you have slept right through the night.

What sleep apnea treatments are available?

Lose weight
Being only slightly overweight can have a marked impact on the effects of sleep apnea and even a small weight loss of 5 to 10 percent can make a significant difference.

Avoid alcohol, tobacco and sleeping pills
Alcohol, tobacco and sleeping pills all make it more likely that your airways will collapse during sleep. In addition, alcohol and sleeping pills can increase both the frequency and duration of pauses in your breathing.

Adjust your sleeping position
Many sufferers sleep on their back and this is the one position in which it is easy for the soft tissue at the back of your throat, or for your tongue, to block your airway. You should try using pillows or cushions therefore to prop yourself up so that you sleep on your side.
If using pillows or cushions doesn't work, then try sewing something like a tennis ball into the back of your pajama jacket. The discomfort of rolling onto the tennis ball will prompt your brain to react by turning you back onto your side.

Continuous Positive Airway Pressure
A very popular form of treatment is the use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). The principle here is to force air into your mouth while you are sleeping and, by so doing, 'push open' your airway. This is achieved by wearing a mask during sleep which is connected to a special CPAP machine. There are, however, a number of problems with this method that mean that it is not always a suitable treatment. Apart from the obvious difficulty of getting used to sleeping with a mask on your face, the treatment can cause nasal irritation, facial skin irritation, abdominal bloating, sore eyes and headaches.
More importantly, however, is the fact that this is not a cure for sleep apnea. While you may derive benefit from CPAP treatment, you'll be right back to square one the moment you discontinue using the machine.

Dental Appliances
A variety of dental appliances can be worn in the mouth during sleep to reposition your lower jaw and tongue and keep your airway open. These of course need to be individually manufactured and fitted by a medical specialist. Once again these devices only provide relief while they are being used and you may find it difficult to get used to wearing them. There are also a range of problems associated with their use including damage to your teeth, the soft tissue of your mouth and your jaw joint.

Surgery
In a significant number of cases, sufferers turn to surgery to cure their problem and, in very severe cases, this is often the only real solution. Surgery is not however without risk and the currently available surgical options are rarely completely successful. Indeed, many patients find that they have to try a series of different procedures before they see any real results.

The general advice from this article about sleep apnia is to get yourself checked out if you snore.