Understanding Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea can be a potentially life-threatening and fatal disorder. However, you would not even know a person is suffering from this condition because they are quite capable of falling asleep normally. The trouble begins once they are already asleep.
Apnea is a condition where the people suffering from it have their ability to breathe blocked. The cause of this inability to breathe is often due to the muscles in the throat relaxing too much and collapsing into the airway. The consequence is that a signal is sent to the brain that breathing has temporarily stopped and the person suffering from it is awakened so that breathing can start again. This indeed is troublesome because the person is constantly awakened gasping for breath.
The interruption in breathing can occur many times throughout the night. In fact, these episodes can even occur up to about fifty times an hour, each episode lasting ten seconds or longer. Although a person is actually awakened in order to gasp for breath, they may be able to fall asleep right away due to their sleepiness and forget about the episode the following morning. They are often left wondering why they always feel very tired during the daytime.
There are two kinds of the disorder, the most common form being obstructive sleep apnea or OSA. OSA occurs when a person stops breathing due to the tissue in the throat closing off the airway. OSA affects about 10% of adults of either gender but mostly on middle-aged, overweight men.
The other form is central sleep apnea or CSA. As the name itself suggests, CSA occurs when the brain fails to send signals to the breathing muscles. CSA is not as common as OSA affecting only about 1% of adults.
Sleep apnea in general can be extremely life threatening and in rare cases fatal if left untreated. It is the underlying cause of other ailments such as heart disease, stroke, and hypertension.
Treatment comes in both surgical and non-surgical methods. The most popular non-invasive procedure is called continuous positive airway pressure or CPAP. In CPAP, a machine delivers a constant flow of room air through a mask that is worn while sleeping. It basically prevents the airway from collapsing and alleviates snoring. A technician monitors the force of the air flow overnight.
Supplemental oxygen is often provided with a CPAP machine. Understand though that oxygen alone cannot prevent the collapse of the airway. Oxygen does prevent the level of blood oxygen from dropping whenever the airway collapses.
There are also dental devices used to treat this disorder, though seldom because of the discomfort they cause. The most common is a mandibular (meaning lower jaw) device. It attaches to the upper jaw and pulls the lower jaw together with the base of the tongue forward. From this description alone, you can already imagine the discomfort it brings to the patient even though it most certainly keeps the airway open.
Medications are generally not a successful in treating sleep apnea patients. So surgical treatments become an option. Some of procedures include uvulopalatophrayngoplasty, somnoplasty, corrective jaw surgery, palatal implants and tracheostomy. It is best to consult a professional for a thorough explanation of each method.
