My Life and Sleep Apnea

Being tired all the time is no fun. Lack of rest can increase your chance of heart disease and diabetes and that can weigh heavily upon you. Then depression and despair follows, sleep apnea is a real pain. But it isn’t just a pain for you, it is also one for your partner, who has to put up with the snoring and the strain that sleep apnea puts on a relationship . Unfortunately damaged relationships are just another harmful side effect of sleep apnea. Even if your partner is a saint that unique grunting sound that accompanies sleep apnea will eventually be too much for them. They may stick cotton in their ears or turn up a sound machine to try to muffle the sound of your snoring but it usually doesn’t work. And when they have had enough of the maddening sound they will head for another room, preferably one that is far enough away so they don’t hear you gasping for air every couple of minutes. This isn’t good for a relationship. (Believe me) Let say that you have a cp...

Erectile dysfunction is a subject that most men don’t want to talk about (or write about). But it seems that you can’t turn on the TV without seeing an ad for ER medications . One possible reason for the attention to ER is that the male population is becoming older and that definitely is a factor for this disorder. There are many other reasons why this condition can occur. Is sleep apnea one of them?   Common causes of erectile dysfunction (from the mayoclinic.com )   Heart disease   clogged blood vessels  high blood pressure  Diabetes  obesity And psychological causes… depression  anxiety  fatigue  relationship problems What about sleep apnea and erectile dysfunction? Sleep apnea patients have their REM sleep stage disrupted. During REM the brain is very active and the body is very immobile. The development of learning occurs during REM especially with infants. REM is also a time when men have erections. Som...

Do you sleep on your back or stomach or on your side? If you have sleep apnea and you use a cpap I know you don’t sleep on your stomach. Does it matter in what position you sleep? Actually it does, especially if you suffer from sleep apnea. Growing up I always slept on my stomach, I don’t know why but that was the most comfortable way for me to get to sleep. Then in my late twenties I suffered a back injury where one of my discs was flattened out. Luckily I was given a shot that blocked the nerve in my back that was causing me such grief. That was also the end of my sleeping on my stomach because that sleeping position isn’t the best for back problems. From that point onward I sleep flat on my back. Not long after that my wife noticed that my snoring got a lot worse. I also noticed that I wasn’t getting very much rest due to sleep apnea. As I have written in past posts I went through the cpap and bipap with no luck. But I have found a little relief lately by sleeping on my side w...

There are many contributing factors to sleep apnea and they all seem to lead to the blockage of your airway. Enlarged tongues are a perfect example of something that can contribute to sleep apnea as well as excess skin tissue inside the throat. Something else to consider is the size of your neck. You may think that having a large neck is exclusively due to being overweight. Studies have shown that non obese people with large necks have a higher rate of sleep apnea then expected. Usually a size of 17 inches in men and 16 inches in women are common signs of sleep apnea. And that seems to be prevalent in middle-aged men with large necks. Having a receding chin and a short but thick neck has also been found with sleep apnea patients. Especially with a receding chin this seems to limit the space for the tongue. A narrow throat can also be a cause of sleep apnea. Overall weight loss can help lessen the severity of sleep apnea but might not be enough to eliminate it. The use of a ...

Exercise, no matter what kind of exercise, is always good for your general and mental health. Just getting out and doing a little walking can lift up mood and make for a better day. Unfortunately the problem with sleep apnea is that you probably don’t have any energy to exercise, thus depriving your self of the natural high that you receive during exercise and giving your heart a workout. Why is exercise so important to sleep apnea sufferers? The most obvious reason is staying in shape. Being overweight is common among sleep apnea patients. Even the slightest bit of exercise, combined with a proper diet can produce some weight loss. The thing to remember is to start out slow, walk for 15 or 20 minutes, at a comfortable rate every day. When you feel that you walk longer than do it. As far as the diet is concerned start slow on that too. Cut back on some foods at first, the key is to let your body get used to less food. If you combine the diet with walking you’ll find that a...

Whether it is in the middle of summer or the dead of winter I sleep better in a cold room. Well, I sleep as well as someone with sleep apnea can. Does the room temperature matter when you have sleep apnea? It seems that a lot of people say that a cold room is better for sleeping than a warm room and that makes sense. In the middle of summer our air conditioning is cranked up and blowing cold air all night (not good for keeping the electric bill down). According to a study the ideal temperature for sleeping is in the 60’s. Above or below this range and it becomes uncomfortable. There must be something to this because at each sleep study that I went too the room was always very cool, to the point of being cold. I definitely needed a blanket to sleep. The problem that I have that is tied to sleep apnea is that I sleep with my mouth open . If the air is cool from the window being open or I have a fan blowing on me I will wake up with a sore throat or at least with a raspy throat. I...

Somehow you can manage to live your life without the proper rest because of sleep apnea. You take naps whenever you can and you drink caffeinated drinks till they come out your ears. You somehow manage to live without enough rest. But can you manage life if you have a stroke that was caused by sleep apnea? A stroke is when blood clots block vessels or arteries which in turn stops blood flowing to the brain. A stroke can also occur when a blood vessel breaks. This sometimes called a brain attack because cells in the brain will begin to die. The sinister part of having a stroke is the effect upon the body. Where the blockage or breaking of the cell occurs, some brain function is affected. You probably know of someone who had a stroke who slurs their words loses the ability to move one of their arms or legs. Memory can also be damaged from a stroke. A common misconception is that strokes and heart attacks are one and the same thing. A heart attack deals with heart damage while a str...