Sleep Apnea is one of the most common sleep disorders in which breathing stops and then restarts again recurrently during slumber. Sleep apnea means that your breathing often is blocked or partly blocked during sleep. The problem can be mild to severe, based on how often your lungs don’t get enough air. This may happen from 5 to more than 50 times an hour.
Sleep Apnea is one of the most common sleep disorders in which breathing stops and then restarts again recurrently during slumber. Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) occurs when the airway temporarily collapses during sleep, preventing or restricting breathing for up to ten seconds or more. OSA patients will commonly suffer from low oxygen levels in the blood, high blood pressure and an overall decrease in the quality of life due to daytime drowsiness and headaches.
Breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to minutes. Such events can occur several hundred times a night severely disrupting sleep. Typically, normal breathing then starts again, sometimes with a loud snort or choking sound. The term “sleep-disordered breathing” (SDB) includes a spectrum of respiratory disorders ranging in severity from snoring to OSA.
Sleep apnea usually is a chronic (ongoing) condition that disrupts your sleep three or more nights each week. You often move out of deep sleep and into light sleep when your breathing pauses or becomes shallow. This results in poor sleep quality that makes you tired during the day. Sleep apnea is one of the leading causes of excessive daytime sleepiness.
There are several causes of Sleep Apnea. Blocked or narrowed airways in your nose, mouth, or throat can cause sleep apnea. Your airways can become blocked when your throat muscles and tongue relax during sleep.
Sleep apnea can also occur if you have large tonsils or adenoids. During the day, when you are awake and standing up, these may not cause problems. But when you lie down at night, they can press down on your airway, narrowing it and causing sleep apnea. Sleep apnea can also occur if you have a problem with your jawbone.
If you have obstructive sleep apnea, your airway can be blocked or narrowed during sleep because:
Sleep apnea is more likely to occur if you are overweight, use certain medicines or alcohol before bed, or sleep on your back.
Adult symptoms can include:
If you have sleep apnea, you also may not be sleeping as well as you could. Sleep apnea can lead to serious problems such as:
With obstructive Sleep Apnea, your airway is blocked by your tongue and it causes your oxygen levels drop. When this occurs, it can seriously affect your health. The drop in oxygen levels can cause:
Over 40 million Americans suffer from a sleep disorder, and 20 million suffer from OSA. Despite the high prevalence, 93% of women and 82% of men with moderate to severe OSA remain undiagnosed. Men were found to be two times more likely than women to have OSA. However, men are eight times more likely to be treated for OSA than women. This suggests that the symptoms of OSA in women are often attributed to other conditions, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, depression and fibromyalgia.
Untreated OSA can severely affect quality of life, health and mortality. Clinical research shows that it is linked strongly to a range of serious, even life-threatening, chronic diseases such as stroke, heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, obesity and coronary heart disease.
SDB affects around 20% of the adult population, making it as widespread as diabetes or asthma. However, awareness is low and we believe that about 90% of people who have OSA remain undiagnosed and untreated. Along with an increasing understanding of the morbidity and mortality caused by SDB, this discrepancy has created one of the fastest growing segments of the respiratory industry.
Oral Appliance
An oral may be able to help keep your airway open while you sleep. The oral device is fitted by our office and worn much like a retainer or sport mouthguard.
It is designed to keep the mandible (jaw) and tongue in a forward position that allows the airway to remain open. Oral devices work best for patients with mild to moderate OSA, patients who experience OSA mostly in the supine position (when sleeping on their backs), and for those who are not obese and do not have a large neck.
Optimizing Your Sleep
Sleep Adequacy and Regularity
A Healthy Bedroom Environment
Eating and Drinking
A Healthy Routine
Treatment with an oral appliance can have several health benefits. They include: