Tips For Treatment Of Sleep Apnea

• Sleep apnea needs to be diagnosed in the sleep laboratory. Occasional episodes of apnea are quite common, and not enough to make the diagnosis. Sleep apnea is a significant sleep disorder, and those who are diagnosed with it are observed to have more than five to ten sleep-apnea episodes an hour, each lasting longer than twenty seconds. This syndrome puts you at risk for other diseases such as hypertension, heart disease, and stroke, and needs to be treated by a physician.    

• All the tips to prevent snoring are applicable to sleep-apneic patients.

• If you have sleep apnea, do not take sleep medicines or sedatives. These chemicals will increase the relaxation in the tissues of the upper airway and make the obstruction worse. In addition, they may very well make your brain less responsive to the low levels of oxygen that the obstruction produces. If your brain does not recognize the falling oxygen level and take steps to remedy it, the consequences could be disastrous. Avoid these medicines - they can be fatal.  

• The specific treatment for obstructive sleep apnea is usually a mask worn at night to keep the airway open. The mask treatment is prescribed by a sleep physician, and the mask is attached to the face by straps and then connected to an air pump. It's an ingenious and effective way of treating sleep apnea. Here's how it works. The main difficulty in obstructive sleep apnea, as we have seen, is that the tissues of the upper airway tend to collapse and narrow the airway. The mask treatment prevents this collapse because room air is pumped under pressure into the upper airway through the mask, causing these tissues to remain open. Usually only a small amount of pressure is needed to prevent the tissues collapsing and to stop the obstruction. With this continuous pressure in the mouth, nose, and back of the pharynx, the airway remains open and there is no resistance to air flow when the diaphragm begins its next movement. Patients wear the mask attached to a small pump every night when they sleep. Though it sounds cumbersome, most patients are usually overjoyed with their ability to enter deep sleep again, and to eliminate the chronic sleep deprivation that they have known for years.