What Is Sleep Apnea?
Sleep ApneaDo you often feel sleepy in the mornings because you have not had enough sleep from the previous night? Do you often feel anxiety, irritability, headaches and difficulties in performing and accomplishing your daily activities? Do you often have poor concentration, memory and attention? Do you experience insomnia? If you answered yes, to most if not all of these questions, you may be suffering from a condition called sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea is a chronic condition which is characterized by reduced breathing patterns or no breathing at all, which lasts 10 seconds or more and can recur several times in your sleep. This condition mostly occurs in adults than in children, which causes a significant drop in your oxygen levels in the blood. Because of the reduction or the complete absence of airflow, people suffering from this may be awaken or have instead of a deep sleep, a shallow and easily-disturbed sleep.
Sleep apnea is a condition that is very hard to diagnose. It cannot be verified through blood tests and other examinations. Sometimes, you may not even notice it yourself since it only occurs when you are at sleep. It may take for a family member to first notice it along with the signs of this condition. A health care provider may perform a review through the patient's history or he or he can test a person while asleep for two hours to measure the amount of apneas that happen in several intervals. The greater number of apneas in an interval, the more severe the illness is.
There are various types of this condition but the most common is called obstructive sleep apnea. This is normally caused by a blockage in the airways of a person, which in turn which in turn will cause the pauses in breathing or the shallow breathing of a patient suffering from this condition. When a person with obstructive sleep apnea breathes, the air that passes the blocked airways causes a mild to a loud noise commonly referred to as a snore. This happens usually with people that are overweight but can also happen to anyone.
Another type of the condition that is less common is central sleep apnea which happens when your brain does not send the correct information which enables breathing. This condition can happen with obstructive sleep apnea but can also occur alone.
Sleep apnea is a condition that requires long periods of management. This chronic disease, if left untreated may cause high blood pressure, heart attacks, obesity, diabetes, arrhythmias, and may also cause accidents.
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