Can You Have Sleep Apnea and Not Know It

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Sleep apnea is a condition marked by abnormal breathing during sleep. People with sleep apnea take multiple extended pauses in breath when they sleep. These temporary breathing lapses cause lower-quality sleep and affect the torso's supply of oxygen, leading to potentially serious health consequences.

Sleep apnea is one of the nearly common sleep disorders in the U.s.a.. It tin can touch children and adults and people of both sexes, although it is more common in men.

Because of sleep apnea'south prevalence and potential wellness impact, it is important for people to exist enlightened of what sleep apnea is and to know its types, symptoms, causes, and treatments.

What Are the Types of Sleep Apnea?

At that place are three types of slumber apnea:

• Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA): OSA occurs when the airway at the dorsum of the pharynx becomes physically blocked. That obstruction causes temporary lapses in breath.
• Cardinal Slumber Apnea (CSA) : CSA happens because there is a problem with the encephalon'due south system for decision-making muscles involved in respiration, leading to slower and shallower breathing.
• Mixed Sleep Apnea: When a person has both OSA and CSA at the aforementioned time, it is referred to as mixed sleep apnea or circuitous sleep apnea.

Considering the underlying causes are distinct, there are of import differences in the symptoms, causes, and treatments of OSA and CSA.

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How Common Is Sleep Apnea?

Obstructive sleep apnea is estimated to affect between 2-ix% of adults in the United States, but many cases are believed to go undiagnosed, which fits with studies that have plant considerably college rates of OSA. Precise prevalence is hard to determine because studies have used different criteria for diagnosing the condition. A consistent finding, though, is that OSA affects men more than than women. It can occur in people of whatever historic period but is more than mutual in older adults.

Central slumber apnea has been institute to affect around .9% of adults over the age of forty. It is found much more frequently in men than in women.

Every bit this data demonstrates, OSA is much more common than CSA. For this reason, when people talk about "slumber apnea," they are more often than not referring to OSA.

What Are the Symptoms of Sleep Apnea?

All three types of sleep apnea share sure mutual symptoms:

• Disrupted breathing in which a person'due south respiration can go labored or even stop for upwards to a minute at a fourth dimension
• Excessive daytime sleepiness
• Morning headaches
• Irritability
• Limited attention span or difficulty thinking conspicuously

Many of these symptoms arise considering of poor sleep and decreased oxygen levels that occur as a result of interrupted breathing.

Some additional symptoms are connected to obstructive sleep apnea:

• Snoring, including snoring that is especially loud and involves gasping, choking, or snorting that may cause a person to briefly wake up
• Morning sore throat or dry mouth
• Frequent demand to wake upwards to urinate (nocturia)

Chronic snoring is the most mutual symptom of OSA, merely that doesn't mean that everyone who snores has sleep apnea. Snoring is not a frequent symptom in people with CSA.

In general, a person with sleep apnea is non enlightened of their breathing issues at nighttime. For that reason, they often but find out about the consequence from a bed partner, family member, or roommate. Excessive daytime sleepiness is the most likely symptom to exist noticed by people with sleep apnea that live lonely.

What Are the Causes of Sleep Apnea?

Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when a person'due south airway becomes blocked during sleep. Multiple factors have been found to increment the run a risk of blockage and OSA:

• Anatomical characteristics. The size and positioning of a person's neck, jaw, tongue, tonsils, and other tissue near the back of the throat can directly affect airflow.
• Obesity. Being overweight is a leading cause of OSA and may be an underlying hazard factor in up to 60% of cases. Obesity contributes to anatomical narrowing of the airway, and research has institute that a 10% increase in weight tin equate to a six-fold increment in OSA take a chance.

• Use of sedatives, including booze. Allaying medications and drugs can crusade tissue in the pharynx to relax, making information technology easier for the airway to get obstructed.
• Family history. People who accept ane or more close relatives with OSA are more than likely to develop OSA themselves.
• Cigarette smoking. People who smoke, specially heavy smokers, have been found to have OSA at a higher rate than people who don't smoke.
• Sleeping on your back. This sleeping position makes it easier for tissue to collapse effectually the airway and crusade blockages.
• Nasal congestion. People whose ability to breathe through the nose is reduced because of congestion are more likely to feel OSA.
• Hormone abnormalities. Hormone weather similar hypothyroidism(underactive thyroid) and acromegaly (backlog growth hormone) may increase the gamble of OSA by causing swelling of tissue well-nigh the airway and/or contributing to a person'southward risk of obesity.

In CSA, breathing is affected in a unlike way than in OSA. Instead of an obstacle causing animate lapses, the problem arises in how the brain communicates with the muscles responsible for respiration. In particular, the brain stalk fails to adequately perceive the levels of carbon dioxide in the body, leading to breathing that is slower and shallower than it should exist.

CSA is typically continued to an underlying medical status. For case, a stroke, infection of the brain, or in rare cases a brain tumor may harm the brain stalk. Hurting medicines similar opioids can besides interfere with this normal procedure of breathing.

Middle failure is considered to be a hazard factor for CSA, and CSA can besides arise when a person'southward oxygen levels are thrown off because they are at loftier altitude.

What Are the Wellness Risks of Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea can lead to sleep deprivation from abiding nightly interruptions and shallower overall sleep. Lack of sleep is associated with far-reaching wellness consequences that bear on a person physically, mentally, and emotionally, and as a outcome, it comes as no surprise that sleep apnea has been tied to diverse health problems.

Because of how information technology affects oxygen rest in the body, untreated sleep apnea raises dangers for diverse types of cardiovascular issues including high blood force per unit area, heart set on, centre affliction, and stroke.

What Are the Treatments for Sleep Apnea?

If you have symptoms of sleep apnea, you should make sure to talk with a doc. Without understanding the root causes of your sleep apnea, information technology is hard to treat. When necessary, the doctor tin recommend an overnight slumber report to analyze your sleep, including your animate.

If a person is diagnosed with OSA or CSA, treatment is often effective at improving sleep and reducing the risks of long-term wellness complications. A dr. familiar with a patient's situation is in the all-time position to accost potential benefits and risks of treatments and make specific recommendations.

Lifestyle changes, such every bit losing weight, reducing apply of sedatives, and sleeping on your side, can resolve some cases of OSA. Some other common treatment is nightly utilise of a continuous positive airway force per unit area (CPAP) or bi-level positive airway pressure (BiPAP) machine. These devices push air through a mask and into the airway to keep it open during sleep.

Some types of mouthpieces that agree the jaw or tongue in a specific position are an pick for people with certain anatomical features that trigger mild OSA. In addition, though normally not the outset treatment choice, surgery to remove tissue and expand the airway can be considered. Medications may be prescribed to help with daytime sleepiness in people with this symptom.

Treatment for CSA typically centers on managing the underlying condition, such as a brain infection, heart failure, or distance adjustment, that causes matted breathing. CPAP or BiPAP machines or supplemental oxygen may help some patients every bit well.

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Well-nigh Our Editorial Team

Eric Suni has over a decade of feel equally a science writer and was previously an information specialist for the National Cancer Institute.

Joel Gould

Dentist, Sleep Apnea Expert

DDS

Dr. Gould has practiced dentistry since 2001 and specializes in treating obstructive sleep apnea. He is the founder of the Slumber Restoration Program.

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