Sleep Apnea; A very serious Sleep Disorder.
I was watching a movie recently, and there was an actress who had the role of experiencing breathing difficulty whilst sleeping, this made me remember, that I use to have a friend in school who experienced a similar condition, it was scary back then because I always had to watch over her shoulder while she slept, I was so scared that something would happen to her without my watch, so I tried to be there for her as much as possible. As much as we all thought it was a spiritual kind of attack, as her parents constantly sought help, I got to understand much better that it was a scientific condition and it also has a scientific name. For the purpose of this post, I will be writing about Sleep apnea, but before that, we need to understand that sleep apnea is not the only type of sleep disorder that exists.
After an extremely difficult physical activity, it is normal to feel tired and while trying to catch your breath, there may be shortness of breath experienced. However, if extreme physical activity isn't there and there is difficulty breathing while lying down or sleeping, then there could be a serious medical condition there. Some other things that could trigger a difficult experience whilst sleeping are; respiratory infections, snoring, panic disorder, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and sleep disorder.
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Respiratory infection is associated with breathing difficulty while lying down, doctors may come up with antibiotics and antiviral medications that would help clear up the infection. If the chest infection is however a minor one, then it could just go away on its own without any type of medication.
Some types of sleep disorders are caused by obesity. Breathing difficulties associated with obesity can be minimized by sleeping on the side of your back, lying on your side also reduces the pressure placed on the lungs through excessive body weight. Losing weight would go a long way to reducing this condition and it would also help prevent future health problems that may come up as a result of excessive weight gain.
In the case of sleep disorders caused by anxiety, treatments like antidepressants or anxiety medications will help ease the symptoms felt, group therapy also helps in the treatment of anxiety. 1
There are sleep disorders caused by allergies, these allergies could get worse at night and when that happens, there is shortness of breath. Watch out f your sleeping environment contains mold, pets, dust, or other things that could trigger your allergy while sleeping.
Panic attacks could also lead to sleep disorders, nightmares and shortness of breath could trigger a certain breath shortage during sleeping periods. An anxious feeling while sleeping has the ability to trigger a fight or fight response in the body during a panic attack.
Certain underlying health conditions like asthma, pneumonia, and heart failure can cause breath shortage during sleep.
In the case of heart failure, the heart fails either fails to pump blood to the other parts of the body as appropriately as it should, or it finds it difficult to relax after the squeezing process. When this happens, there is an increase in the pressure of the heart and this can cause fluid to back up right into the abdomen, the lungs, or even the legs.
Heart failure leads to fatigue, breath shortage, swelling of the legs, and coughing in certain cases, even walking up a staircase can become really difficult sometimes.
- COPD is another condition that affects breathing whilst sleeping, this condition damages the air sacs found in the lungs, which narrows the tubes and creates more difficulty whilst breathing. This condition gives rise to breathing difficulty even while carrying out physical exercises and of course breath shortage during sleep. 2
What really happens, when breathing stops?
When breathing stops, the heart rate drops the moment the body is deprived of oxygen. Involuntary reflexes make you jerk awake at the end of the non-breathing period. With this occurrence, the heart rate accelerates very fast and of course, a rise in blood pressure occurs. Frequent apnea would lead to chronic effects of the condition.
Without wasting time, let's get straight to the main discussion of the day, which is; Sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea is a very common sleep disorder related to breathing, this sleep disorder makes you constantly cease breathing from time to time whilst you sleep (scary isn't it), but it happens in reality. Sleep apnea comes in different forms, we have; obstructive sleep apnea, central sleep apnea, and complex sleep apnea. The condition happens as a result of obstruction that occurs in the airways, but let's find out, how that happens.
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Obstructive sleep apnea: This happens to be the most type of common type of relationship that exists, it happens when the airways become partially or completely blocked during sleep, and this often occurs when the soft tissue at the back of the throat collapses. During the season of the collapse, the diaphragm and the chest muscle work in a harder way to ensure that the airways are opened, as a result, breathing may come with loud gasps and even body jerks. This condition could ultimately, affect sleep hours as it lowers the flow of oxygen into the very vital organs and results in an abnormal heart rhythm.
Central sleep apnea: In the case of central sleep apnea, the airway doesn't get blocked, instead, the brain refuses to send a message to the muscles to breathe and this is a result of the issues surrounding the respiratory control center. The case of central sleep apnea happens more in people who have a neuromuscular diseases like; * amyotrophic lateral sclerosis*, with stroke, heart failure, kidney, and even lung disease.
Complex sleep apnea: The case of complex sleep apnea is a complicated one, it happens when there is a combination of obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea. 3
How to Identify Sleep Apnea.
In most cases, the person with the condition would usually not notice anything strange until they are told by a roommate or a friend. These are some of the most common signs that would be noticed;
Snoring: Snoring happens when there is an airflow restriction during sleep, creating loud noises. Long-term snoring would increase the possibility of having heart attack, stroke and some other serious health conditions. Snoring could sieze by folloing simple lifestyle habits; loosing weight, consuming alchohol before bed could do a lot of good.
Daytime sleepiness or fatigue: The feeling of consistent tiredness and weakness could come in either a physical or a mental form, in some cases, it comes in both forms. Fatigue can cause; headache, dizziness, loss of appetite, blurry vision, hallucinations, aching muscles, moodiness.
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Restlessnes during sleep: Even if in most cases, we do not know what we do while sleeping, you may just notice that, you do not feel refreshed after having a night of restless sleep. Having a restless sleep is characterized with;
- Being half asleep or not sleeping appropriately.
- Constantly starring at a point because the mind is racing constantly.
- Not being able to sleep back quickly after an unexpected and sudden wake up.
- Inability to sleep sound backed up with fraustration.
- Sleep talking or yelling during sleep.
- Loud snoring involving noise from gasping or choking.
- Grinding of the teeth. 4
Waking up with a dry mouth: Saliva is really important to the mouth as it keeps the mouth moist, the antibacterial nature also keeps the mouth very clean. Associated with dryness, also comes, burning sensation in the mouth, difficulty while swallowing, sore throat, speech probles and a hoarse voice. 5
Mood disorders: A mental health condition affects the emotional state of the being on a whole new level.Mood disorder comes with;
- Depression.
- Premenstural dysphoric disorder.
- Bipolar disorder. 6
Night sweats: Night sweats may be normal especially when you are sleeping in a room where the weather is extremely hot, but when you sweat so much that, your clothes and the bed gets extremely wet, even after sleeping in a cool environment, then there is something not adding up appropriately. 7
Frequent night time urination: The frequent urge to urinate at night, deprives one of a proper night rest,imagine having to wake up up to 6-8 times to urinate before night rest is over. nocturia is the name for frequent urination. The frequent urge of urination produces little urine. 8
Headaches: A lot of people will eperience headache's at some points in their lives, headache comes with pain in the head and on the face, the pain could be either constant, dull or sharp. 9
Sexual Dysfunction:This is the inability that makes it difficult for couples to eperience a pleasurable physical activity.Arousal and desire are part of the phases of excitement when it comes to sexual pleasure and satisfaction and sleep apnea, has a way of taking that away. 10
Symptoms in children quiet differ from the displayed sumptoms in adult as described above;
Breathing through the mouth during the day and difficulty associated with swallowing.
Unusual sleeping positions, like sleeping on the hands, sleeping on the knees or having an hyper-extended neck while sleeping.
Learning as well as behavioural disorders.
Sleepiness or slugishness which could be misinterpreted as laziness in the classroom.
Dry mouth and swallowing difficulty.
Treatment for sleep apnea.
MILD CASES
If sleep apnea is a mild one, constructive theraphy may be all that is needed.
An overweight person who looses weight, could reduce some type of apneic events, even weight loss for as low as 10% would do the magic. However, loosing weight could be difficult to achieve if sleep apnea is not treated and this is because of the available increased appetite resulting in more food consumption.
Alchohol should be avoided altogether, there are also some type of sleeping pills that sleep makes the airway collapse while sleeping and of course prolonged apneic periods.
Some mild cases of obstructive sleep apnea could be avoided by simply placing a wedge pillow or other instruments that helps them sleep in a sideays position.
Getting appropriate sleep at the right time would help reduce the effect of sleep apnea.
More Complex Treatments
Positive Airway Pressure (PAP) Therapy:This used to be the preferred treatment for people wh have obstructuve sleep apnea, but since the episodes of apnea returns after the process or when used inappropriately, it is no longer widely used.
The process for PAP theraphy invlves the patient wearing a mask over their nose or their mouth, sometimes even the nose and mouth. The air blower gently forces air throguh the nose or the mouth, the air pressure becomes adjusted so that it is just sufficient enough to prevent the upper airway tissues from collapsing while sleeping.
Mandibular advancement devices: This treatment is for those who have mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea. Dental appliances helps to prevent the tounge from blocking the throat, the devices help to keep the airway open while sleeping. An expert should determine if this treatment is best for you before you decide to proceed with it.
Hypoglossal nerve stimulator: This stimulator is fixed underneath the skin on the right side of the chest, it has electrodes passed under the skin to the hyperglossal nerve in the neck and then to the intercostal muscles found between in the chest. During bedtime, the device is turned on with a remote control, with every breath taken, the hypoglossal nerve gets stimulated, the tounge then moves forward out of the airway and then the airay gets opened.
Surgery: Surgery helps with obstructive sleep apnea and even those who do not have sleep apnea but they still snore. It is basically for those who have excessive or malformed tissues obstructing airflow through the nose or the throat.
The surgery procedure is performed typically on those with which conservative measures for sleep apnea has failed.11
For further studies.
https://www.healthline.com/health/breathing-difficulty-lying-down#treatment
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325539#when-to-see-a-doctor
https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/sleep-apnea/sleep-apnea
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/what-causes-restless-sleep
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17843-mood-disorders
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/night-sweats/
https://www.healthline.com/health/sleep/excessive-urination-at-night#diagnosis
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9639-headaches
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9121-sexual-dysfunction
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/8718-sleep-apnea
Hi, I am Tobi a writer, speaker, relationship blogger, and lover of good music. I love making friends and learning from people. Want to hear me speak on relationships and general life issues, you can find my podcast channel Here and I also have a youtube channel where you can listen and watch any episode for free, do not forget to subscribe and share with friends. I sincerely appreciate every love I get from members of the community and do well to keep them coming.
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Seems like everyone is suffering from sleeplessness these days, even without a specific condition like apnea.
Hmmm, could that be because everyone is getting really bothered about life?
Great content. I once had a roommate in school who used to have obstructive sleep apnea. It can really be very scary
Really scary oo my friend, hope your friend is better now?
Yeah ,sure he is fine now. He is currently a nurse and doing well for himslef
This is a very good read. I have a bit of difficult understanding what you mean by this sentence:
Are you saying that consuming alcohol just before bed could help reduce snoring? Because it seems like that's what the sentence is implying.
NB: There are some typos in your article. You should try to fix them.