My Life and Sleep Apnea

It is no surprise that folks with sleep apnea have less energy due to the lack of quality sleep time. If you wake up hundreds of times each night it is impossible to feel refreshed and ready to go in the morning. Lack of energy can have a profound negative effect on your life. But sleep apnea isn’t the only thing that causes this lack of energy. There are other illnesses that zap your energy and there is one that has a connection with obstructive sleep apnea and that is hypothyroidism . What is hypothyroidism ? According to WebMd.com hypothyroidism “means your thyroid is not making enough thyroid hormone. The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in the front of your neck. It makes hormones that control the way your body uses energy.” Another consequence of hypothyroidism is high cholesterol which is bad for your heart. Common symptoms of this disease are lack of energy, skin irritation, memory problems and not being able to be in the cold. Thankfully, hypothyroidism is tr...

If you have sleep apnea then you know that the number one way to eliminate it is by using a CPAP mask. Surgery can also be used but it doesn’t always work and the recovery period can be very long. Of course with the CPAP mask you will definitely have to take time to get used to the air being pushed into your mouth by the CPAP machine. Some at first struggle with it and then get used to it while others find it impossible to use. So what if you can’t use a CPAP and you are very leery of surgery, then what do you do? While it might not completely cure your sleep apnea there are things that you can do to lessen the extent of it.  Although not everyone who has sleep apnea is overweight but the vast majority are. While it is easier said than done, losing weight would be a big help. The tissue in your throat wouldn’t be as bad as it was when you were heavier. Not a cure but it will help.   Throat exercises can also be helpful because it tightens the muscles in ...

Sleep apnea is becoming a growing problem in this country and it is probably due to obesity. It seems strange because at the same time the idea of living a healthy lifestyle and eating well-balanced meals are also getting a lot of press. One of the reasons is that as a population we are growing older and unfortunately fatter. Of course gaining weigh will bring on more sickness and more visits to the doctor’s office. And we all know about how high the cost of healthcare is today so anything to eliminate those doctors’ visits is a good thing. Everyone knows or are finding out that not dealing with sleep apnea can have a profound effect on your life. Less sleep can effect your personality as well as your general thought process but probably the biggest effect is what it does to your heart. When you have sleep apnea there is a blockage in the back of your throat that causes you to stop breathing. The brain recognizes this lack of oxygen and forces you to awake. With those with slee...

 If you are familiar with sleep apnea then you know that the problem that you have is waking up during the night due to a blockage of the airway in the back of the throat. The brain senses that the intake of oxygen has stopped and you are immediately awaken to breathe again. This could occur hundreds of times each night depending on how bad your blockage is. But how do you know how bad your sleep apnea is? The way to find out the severity of your sleep apnea is by having a sleep study where your sleep or lack of it is monitored closely. By the end of the night your AHI or apnea-hypopnea index determines your level of sleep apnea. What is Apnea-hypopnea Index ? AHI is the number of times that your sleep and breathing is interrupted during the night. During the sleep study you are hooked up to many wires that monitor your sleep. A sleep technician in another room watches you sleep and also watches the AHI and other indexes. The AHI is actually the addition of the number ...

The body seems to make adjustments when things are going right. When you are scared the body releases chemicals to fight off the terror. Or when you get hurt the body releases endorphins to help with the pain and injury. So what does the body do when you are suffering from sleep apnea? You stop breathing and the brain goes into panic mode and wakes you up. But according to a new study by the University of Toronto the brain also releases a chemical called noradrenaline that helps the brain learn more effectively. The article goes on to state that the brain forces the respiratory muscles to work harder as we struggle with sleep apnea. Apparently the chemical noradrenaline helps all this to occur. Which brings up an interesting question what if there was a medication that increased the level of noradrenaline? If all that were worked out you have a drug to help with sleep apnea. Of course all this would take time to happen, way in the future. That is really interesting because I ...

For a lot of children getting enough sleep is a big problem. Getting the children to bed is also a very big problem for the parents especially as they get older. But it has to be dealt with because sleep is very important to emotional as well as physical growth. And children need a lot more sleep than adults . Believe it or not infants usually sleep up to 16 hours a day in 3 to 4 hour intervals. (I know that is hard to believe!). Whereas teenagers should get around 9 hours according to the American Sleep Disorder Association. I doubt if that happens either. As for how much sleep an adult needs is around 7 or hours depending on the person (and depending if you have children). Like you children can also have sleep disorders even the worse kind, sleep apnea, which can appear at any age. Sleep problems for children Sleep apnea can be found in infants as well as younger children. Blockage is usually due to enlarged tongues.  Bedwetting or nocturnal enuresis is probably the mo...

Sleep apnea is divided into obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea. Obstructive is caused by blockage of the airway and central apnea, which is less common, is caused when the brain doesn’t send signals to the muscles to breathe. As with most things there are different levels of severity of sleep apnea. With obstructive sleep apnea the range of severity can be determined by a sleep study that counts the number of apnea, or cessation of breathing, that occurs if the number isn’t high, and then your sleep apnea might be cured by an oral device or by just losing weight. It should also be noted that not all awakening are the same there are apneas and there are micro-arousals . What is a micro-arousal ? According to psychosomaticmedicine.org micro arousals are “a sudden transient cortical activation during sleep, but does not necessarily result in a behavioral awakening. The origin of an arousal is usually "cortical" but it can also be generated in response to sen...