My Life and Sleep Apnea

If you are like me you have tried many things to help with your sleep apnea. Throat exercises , losing weight, cpap masks are among the few things that I have tried, although I haven’t tried to play the didgeridoo (maybe some day). I am now wondering if my sleep apnea would be better if I changed pillows. Like most people who have sleep apnea and acid reflux I sleep with 2, sometimes 3 pillows stacked behind my head. That seems to help relieve the acid reflux more than the sleep apnea because with my head pushed forward my throat becomes even more blocked. If I don’t have the pillows my head leans back and my throat does seem more open but the acid reflux would really be worse. Years ago I slept on my stomach, it was bad on my back but I got a lot more rest. Unfortunately my back problems put an end to that. And I have also tried sleeping my side but with Meniere’s disease that sometimes throw off my balance. I am thinking about changing pillows. Does anyone have any suggest...

I have read that you dream during the REM stage of sleep. I have also read that sleep apnea patients don’t reach that stage of sleep. But sleep apnea patients still dream . REM (rapid eye movement) is a stage of sleep that occurs 4 or 5 times a night. Usually it takes up about 20 per cent of your sleeping time. The brain is very active during REM and the body has a type of paralysis that it goes into. There is also a sleep disorder called sleep paralysis . REM is also the time of the most vivid and memorable dreams that you will have. But I dream all the time and I remember the dreams? As a matter of fact my dreams go on for what seems like a long period of time. I have had the sleep studies and there is no doubt that I have sleep apnea but it seems strange that my dreams are so vivid. The only thing that I can think of is that I wake up (caused by apnea) then I fall asleep quickly and resume the dream. Another reason that I don’t think that I reach REM is the paralysis that occu...

There had to be a point where you knew something was wrong. You were tired in the morning, even on the mornings where you could sleep in you were still tired. Or maybe your short term memory wasn’t as good as it used to be. You never felt rested but you just couldn’t figure what the problem was. What was your first sign of sleep apnea ? Although blockage of the airway is the common thread among sleep apnea patients, how you first become diagnosed varies greatly. It used to be before sleep apnea became known that people with OSA just lived with it or tried things like sleeping pills (which make matters worse). But today sleep apnea is widely known there shouldn’t be any problem being diagnosed. Unfortunately there are still many people out there that don’t know that they have sleep apnea. They may think that they just have insomnia or some other problem, dismissing the idea that they could have sleep apnea. I could be that they are leery about sleep apnea because of the horror stori...

If you have read any of my past posts then you know that my father also had sleep apnea . His snoring would be loud one minute and then it would abruptly cut off. My snoring is similar. But one thing that Dad did that I don’t do that much of is cough , especially in the morning. As I can remember my Father didn’t have asthma, or any other type of illness that would make him cough. He didn’t smoke or drink. He did have heart disease and his blood circulation was weak but I don’t think that had anything to do with his coughing. Of course back then no one ever spoke of sleep apnea, so that wasn’t considered a reason for his coughing. From what I have read others have experienced coughing and choking along with their sleep apnea. I can certainly understand that when you are trying to gasp for air in the middle of the night! One possible reason for the coughing is that the throat is sore which makes sense because after a particularly bad night of trying to sleep my throat is very sore...

Sl eep deprivation , whether it is sleep apnea or insomnia, can lead to so many health problems like depression , heart disease and high blood pressure. The lack of oxygen and the lack of good rest are detrimental to healthy living. Now it seems that there is also a connection between sleep apnea and addiction. One of the most common addictions of people who have a difficult time sleeping is the abuse of sleeping pills. Sleeping pills along with sleep apnea isn’t a good idea because the sleeping pills relaxes the muscles in the back of the throat which is exactly how the airway is blocked thus making breathing even more difficult. Plus sleeping pills can be addictive and some do have side effects for the user. Seek other treatment for sleep disorders rather than sleeping pills. Alcoholism is a double edged sword when it comes to sleep apnea. If you have sleep apnea and you drink, the alcohol will make the apnea worse by relaxing the muscles in the throat. If you are an alcohol...

There are many sleep apnea treatments and procedures; here are just a few of the main ones. The easy way to help with your sleep apnea is to lose weight . It probably won’t completely end your sleep apnea but it should help, although if you have central sleep apnea this wouldn’t help. The chin strap is simple device that fits around the top of the head and around your chin. The idea behind it is to keep your mouth shut. Some people use it with the cpap machine others just by itself. Dental devices fit in your mouth at night in order to keep the airway open. This is usually only effective with mild sleep apnea. Somnoplasty is a procedure that uses a radio frequency directed at the soft palate and the uvula. This in effect stiffens the soft palate eliminating the snoring. This is an outpatient procedure. Another outpatient surgery is the laser assisted uvula palatoplasty or LAUP . This procedure vaporizes the soft palate and the uvula. Done on an outpatient basis it takes more...

I probably should have written about this a long time ago but better late than never. How do you know if you have sleep apnea symptoms ? It seems that more and more people every day are tested for this condition and they find out that they indeed have sleep apnea. Unfortunately there are still many who don’t have any idea that they may have it. They wake up every day tired and restless and just write it off as a bad night's sleep or maybe they think they are just a light sleeper, when in fact there is a much deeper problem. What are the sleep apnea symptoms ? In my own case, I knew that there was a problem because my wife complained about my snoring and how it kept her up all night. It would get a little better when I slept on my side or on my stomach, but I didn’t find those sleep positions very comfortable. But what really did it for me was a friend at work talked about going to a sleep study and how he was fitted for a cpap machine. He told me that his wife complained about his ...

You can’t sleep and you know why you can’t sleep, because you have sleep apnea. In the morning you are grumpy, irritable and no fun to be around. It might even be worse than that because there seems to be a connection between sleep apnea and depression. I have been struggling with sleep apnea for years and I had also been struggling with depression for years. I had never made the connection between the two. My depression is now under control thanks to medication and quite a few counseling sessions. Depression isn’t a clear cut illness that you can point to one reason that you have it. It may be the culmination of many things, a bad childhood, heredity, chemical imbalance and yes, even sleep apnea. I don’t know why I didn’t consider my sleep apnea as a contributor to my depression. I had always thought that it was due to a chemical imbalance or heredity or something else. The thought that my lack of sleep could make me depressed didn’t cross my mind. The light bulb in my head f...

Apparently there may be some connection between sleep apnea and seizures. Although there isn’t any solid evidence that sleep apnea causes seizures or convulsions, but some seem to think correcting sleep apnea will help with the seizures. What is a grand mal seizure ? A grand mal seizure is where you lose consciousness and you have violent muscle contractions. This type of seizure is common with epilepsy patients. (Read more about it at MayoClinic.com ) but you can have a grand mal seizure and not be a epileptic. A neurologist is the doctor that you would see if you had seizures because it’s a disorder of the brain. Medications are used to keep seizures under control. Sleep deprivation is considered one of the risk factors of grand mal seizure. So it would make sense that sleep apnea folks would be at risk for seizures. Studies have also found that people with epilepsy also have a higher percentage of sleep apnea than the regular population. The lack of oxygen to the brain can tri...

I have dealt with sleep apnea for the past 10 years. If you have read my blog (and I hope that you have) you will know that I have been to several doctors and I have tried both the cpap and the bipap without much luck. This past year has been rough for me because I am still trying to get my meniere’s disease under control. I have had some success; this year has been a lot better than last year. So that’s good. But in the back of my mind I always think of how much sleep apnea has held me back. But this feeling isn’t anything new. I knew that I had a problem with my sleeping because my wife had mentioned how strange my snoring was and I also was extremely tired each morning. In 1999, I started on my quest to finding the solution to my sleep apnea problems and that first attempt was definitely a failure. The cpap experience was bad. Looking back I probably could have tried harder but that mask just wasn’t going to work. I then ignored the problem as best I could for another 2 years til...

There has been a lot of information on the web lately about how losing weight will help with sleep apnea. A study done at the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University in Philadelphia has come to the conclusion that a loss of 10 percent will greatly reduce sleep apnea in patients. Most of headlines that I have read will have you believe that is just folks with sleep apnea. The study was actually done with people who also had type 2 diabetes. This all sounds encouraging but I can’t see that losing 10 percent of your weight can have that much effect on sleep apnea because not all sleep apnea is caused by being overweight . My father had sleep apnea and he wasn’t overweight. Losing weight wasn’t an option for him and even if it was it wouldn’t have helped his sleep apnea. The other causes of sleep apnea are: The size and shape of your head may cause the airway in your mouth to be smaller When you get older your brain sends signals to the muscles in the mouth ...