My Life and Sleep Apnea

If you have been in the hospital or have visited someone there you probably have noticed that oxygen therapy is used a lot with patients. It can be administered by putting tubes in your nose to raise the amount of oxygen that you receive which is extremely important especially if your health isn’t 100 percent.   Sleep apnea also has to do with a lack of oxygen as well.   That lack of oxygen can result in serious health risks to the heart and the brain. So the question is can you use oxygen therapy for sleep apnea. You would think that it would be reasonable to conclude that oxygen therapy would be beneficial to those with sleep apnea. Unfortunately that isn’t the case. According to About.com there are some drawbacks to using it to help with sleep apnea such as morning headaches along with confusion. And it doesn’t seem to help with the actual apnea episodes at all.   Although it doesn’t help with obstructive sleep apnea there is an indication that it can help with centra...

In the past I have written about how difficult it is to have sleep apnea and work the late shift. Even for folks who don’t have sleep apnea changing your sleep pattern so dramatically can cause sleep problems. Years ago I had a job where I had to sleep during the day and it was very difficult to get used to it (at the time I didn’t know that I had sleep apnea either. Last week I work a post about the growing concern of police officers having sleep disorders particularly sleep apnea. I received a comment from someone who had police officers in her family. She also wrote about her own situation regarding being a nurse and working the night shift. Here is part of the comment… I am a Nurse and used to work nights. I had much difficulty with a sleep pattern that worked for me. I began to fall asleep at work, driving, at the dinner table etc...The dr. thought I had sleep apnea but it wasn't until I became non responsive at the dinner table with my family thinking it was a normal episode ...