Things You Can Do to Manage Your Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea is a severe sleep-related disorder which causes your breathing to stop and start repeatedly. For example, you might have sleep apnea if you snore loudly and feel exhausted even after a whole night’s rest. There are three kinds of sleep apnea. They are obstructive sleep apnea, the most common variety occurring when your throat muscles relax. Central sleep apnea occurs when your brain doesn’t signal the muscles controlling your breathing. Finally, complex sleep apnea syndrome, alternatively called treatment-emergent sleep apnea, occurs if you simultaneously have obstructive and central sleep apnea.
If you are led to believe you have sleep apnea by your bed partner, you must seek sleep apnea treatment in Worcester, MA, to ease your symptoms and help prevent cardiovascular problems or other complications.
Symptoms of Sleep Apnea to Watch out
Obstructive and central sleep apnea symptoms overlap, making it challenging to determine which kind affects you. However, the familiar signs of central and obstructive sleep apnea include loud snoring, episodes when you stop breathing when asleep reported by another person, gasping for air when sleeping, awakening with a dry mouth, insomnia, morning headaches, excessive sleepiness during the day, challenges paying attention, and irritability.
Although loud snoring indicates a severe problem, it is not an indicator of sleep apnea because not everyone with sleep apnea snores. It would help if you discussed your symptoms of the condition with your dentist and explain about sleep issues that leave you exhausted, sleepy, and irritable.
Causes of Sleep Apnea
The causes of sleep apnea differ according to the kind affecting you. If you have obstructive sleep apnea, the muscles supporting your soft palate in the throat relax. The relaxing of the muscles narrows as you breathe, lowering the oxygen level in your blood. Your brain identifies the problem and briefly awakens you from sleep to enable you to open your airway. Obstructive sleep apnea causes choking, snorting, or gasping, and the pattern repeats itself approximately 30 times during the hour throughout the night to impair your ability to get a good night’s rest.
If you have central sleep apnea, when your brain doesn’t transmit signals to your breathing muscles, it indicates that you make no effort to breathe for brief periods. As a result, you might awaken breathlessly or confront a challenging time trying to and staying asleep.
Risk Factors of Sleep Apnea
The risk factors of obstructive sleep apnea include excess weight, neck circumference, narrowed airways, gender, age, family history, use of alcohol, sedatives or tranquilizers, smoking, nasal congestion, and medical conditions.
Central sleep apnea risks differ and affect middle-aged or older people, putting them at a higher risk of this condition. In addition, men are more susceptible to having central sleep apnea. Besides the above, people with heart disorders, using narcotic painkillers, and strokes are also vulnerable to the problem.
Whether you have obstructive or central sleep apnea, you must seek treatment to ensure you don’t become vulnerable to complications like daytime fatigue, high blood pressure or cardiovascular problems, type II diabetes, liver problems, and metabolic syndrome.
Treatment for Sleep Apnea
Before considering any treatment for sleep apnea, you must get the condition diagnosed by a dentist in Worcester, MA by undergoing a polysomnography test or a home sleep apnea test. The evaluation helps the medical professional determine the kind of sleep apnea affecting you to suggest a suitable remedy for your condition.
If you have obstructive sleep apnea, you might receive a referral to an ENT specialist to identify blockages in your nose and throat. However, you might require an evaluation from a cardiologist or neurologist to determine the causes of this condition.
The severity of sleep apnea determines which treatment best suits your needs. If you need mild sleep apnea treatment, your doctor might recommend lifestyle changes like losing weight and quitting smoking. In addition, your dentist might suggest getting treatment for nasal allergies if you have them. Unfortunately, if the measures don’t relieve the symptoms, alternative treatments help fix the problem.
With central sleep apnea, the risk factors are associated with irreversible conditions like your older age, use of narcotic pain relievers and health conditions. Therefore you might need the CPAP device to ease the problem with your breathing. In addition, the treatment for central sleep apnea includes therapy for associated medical conditions or neuromuscular disorders because treating these conditions help.
Managing Sleep Apnea
Besides the treatments mentioned above, you can consider some lifestyle changes to manage sleep apnea at home even after getting your condition diagnosed by your dentist near you. You must try to lose excess weight, get regular exercise for at least 30 minutes daily, avoid medications and alcohol before sleeping, sleep on your sides instead of your back and quit smoking for freedom from this condition.
Sleep apnea is not a mild sleep disorder that causes snoring but has severe complications that can affect your overall health. Therefore if affected by this problem, you can find relief by visiting Tatnuck Family Dental Care to have your condition evaluated and seeking treatment from the practice in line with the kind of sleep apnea affecting you.
