Education
Sleep apnea is one of the most common disorders in the world, and in America alone, impacts as many as 30 million people. While there are some factors that can increase your risk of suffering from sleep apnea, it doesn’t discriminate by age, sex, or race. Almost 80% of the people with sleep apnea have it and don’t realize it.
There are three basic types of sleep apnea:
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA)
The most common form is OSA. With OSA, the muscles in the neck and airway relax, and the soft tissues narrow or close your airway. You can’t breathe, so you snore or snort and wake yourself from a sound sleep. You may not realize this, but it can happen over 30 times each hour. This type of sleep apnea is most commonly treated in our practice.
Central Sleep Apnea (CSA)
CSA occurs when the brain simply forgets to tell you to breathe. While it shares some causes with OSA, it may also relate to certain medications or having had a stroke.
Treatment-emergent central sleep apnea
Treatment-emergent sleep apnea is when you’ve been diagnosed with OSA, and during your treatment develop CSA.
Like many of life’s ailments, sleep apnea can be impacted by age, weight, family history, and your consumption of alcohol or medications. But it isn’t simply an old-age problem. You can develop sleep apnea at any age. While excess weight can exacerbate sleep apnea, it’s a contributing factor and not a determining one. And moderate consumption of alcohol and use of prescription medications may not lead to sleep apnea.
Simply being tired isn’t the only side effect of sleep apnea. It can cause headaches, shortness of breath, inability to focus during the day, and increase your risk of heart attack, stroke, and even Type 2 diabetes. Chronic facial pain such as, headaches, migraines, TMJ/TMD, are shown to often have a sleep disorder prior to the pain and treating the sleep disorder improves the pain.
Obstructive sleep apnea is treatable. The first step in the process is completing an evaluation which may include an easy at home sleep test. While there are complicated treatment options, like a CPAP machine or surgery, our experience and numerous studies have shown that the outpatient solutions that we offer can provide immediate relief.