Archive for January, 2007

Night sweats means sweating during the night. Women over the age of forty often experience night sweats.

Night sweats are common in menopausal women because of the decrease in estrogen hormone levels.

But it is not true that night sweats should be present in all menopausal women compulsorily

Due to the estrogen deficiency, your hormones levels fluctuate. Your blood vessels expand and contract on an irregular basis. As the blood flow increases, a feeling of heat and flush starts on the face, neck and chest.

Your body temperature increases and you may sweat and as the sweat evaporates you feel chilled and weak. Depending on the intensity of hot flash, you may feel tired, lose sleep, headache. Your body may become red as flash occurs.

Low levels of estrogen affect several parts of the body: the skin, vagina, vulva, bones and breasts.

Along with night sweats, you may experience hot flashes. Night sweats occur in the night while hot flashes occur in day time.

When you experience night sweats, your clothes will become wet and your bed will become wet. Due to the wet bedding and clothes, your sleep may be disturbed frequently in the night. You have to change your clothes whenever your clothes become wet.

Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder in which the brain does not regulate sleep wake cycle and it causes a person difficulty staying awake.

The common symptom of narcolepsy is excessive daytime sleepiness. You may sleep at any time during the day and you may have episodes of sleep half an hour or less.

If your muscles become weak without loss of consciousness, it is called cataplexy. It may occur by sudden emotional reaction such as anger, joy, surprise etc.

Narcolepsy is common in both men and women and can occur at any age. About one of every 2000 people have narcolepsy. The symptoms of narcolepsy include excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, sleep paralysis and hypnogogic hallucinations.

If you are suffering from narcolepsy, you may prone to accidents as you may sleep while driving due to excessive sleepiness. Sometimes you are prone to sleep attacks while driving and this leads to accidents.

Narcolepsy is caused by the shortage of chemical called hypocretin. The deficiency of hypocretin might produce sleep attack.

Adults who sleep walk may do as the result of genetic disorder according to the news released from American Academy of Neurology.

In a recent study, reported in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, researchers discovered the first genetic marker for sleep walking.

A study conducted from the University hospital in Bern, Switzerland, found that adult sleep walking has a genetic component related to the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) system, a genetically determined element of the immune system. HLA genes provide the information needed to allow the body to create immune cells.

Compared to child sleep walking, adult sleep walking is often associated with dangerous activities. In the study conducted, thirty two percent of participants reported occurrences of violent incidences as a result of sleep walking while nineteen percent reported injuries while sleep walking.

Of the study participants, 58% of them are sleep walkers from childhood and 24% of them had relatives who also were sleep walkers.

Sleep walking occurs when your brain has trouble making the transition from non-REM sleep to REM sleep. Adult sleep walking is related to REM sleep behavior disorder.

Sleep problems are common in childhood as we also struggle to sleep sometimes.

Sleep problems in your children may be temporary, intermittent or chronic.

Sleep problems in children are related to poor sleep habits or anxiety about going to bed and falling asleep.

Your child may have any of the following sleep problems:

• Separation Anxiety Disorder(SAD)
• Nightmares
• Night terrors
• Sleepwalking
• Bruxism or Teeth grinding
• Sleep talking
• Bedwetting

Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD):

Many children feel nervous or anxiety going to bed and falling asleep because they are separated from their parents. Symptoms of separation include headache, stomachache, vomiting, nausea and crying.

Children with SAD will often have trouble sleeping in their own room and will try to sleep as close to the parent as possible. Children may also experience separation anxiety concerning only one parent or both. You must assure your child that you are there with them always.

Nightmares:

Nightmares are common during childhood. Children suddenly wake up from sleep crying and screaming. Your child may experience nightmare for a few nights but it will not last for a long time.

Bruxism refers to grinding or clenching of the teeth, often unconsciously, during the day or at night during sleep.

If you have bruxism, you grind your teeth without your knowledge. Your bed partner may be able to hear your grinding of teeth.

Bruxism often occurs in the early part of the night and can disrupt your sleep partner.

Some of them make no sound while grinding their teeth and do not realize they are doing it until the dentist notices unusual wear spots on their teeth.

If you grind or clench the teeth, you may wake up with a headache, earache or toothache. Your facial muscles may be sore and the jaw joints tender.

It can cause discomfort and can eventually damage dental restorations and may loosen teeth. Bruxism can also cause damage to the temporomandibular joints the joints on each side of the mouth that connect the lower jaw to the skull.

The pressure from clenching and grinding can cause cracks or fractures in the teeth. The underlying layer of dentin may be exposed as your teeth enamel is worn away.

RLS:

Restless legs syndrome is a condition in which you feel sensations of discomfort in legs when you are sleeping or taking rest.

RLS also may result from other conditions such as diabetes, kidney disease, neuropathy, anemia and even nervous system trauma. The discomfort is relieved by moving the legs.

The symptoms include an uncomfortable feeling in the legs and an irresistible urge to move the legs while at rest.

These symptoms which are difficult to describe occur more often in the evening or night and may be relieved by moving, massaging or rubbing the legs.

When you wake up during night due to restless legs syndrome, your bed partner recognizes the symptom. Restless legs syndrome affects adolescents, elderly people, and children and is more common in women.

If you are suffering from RLS symptoms, you may have difficulty in falling asleep as you may have unpleasant feelings in the legs which disrupts sleep

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), hypertension, depression, excessive daytime sleepiness, and substance abuse have all been associated with RLS and may be the result of untreated RLS.

1.Put your baby to sleep on his back:

This is the important thing you can do to help protect your baby.

The rate of deaths from SIDS has dropped 40 percent since 1994, when the “Back to Sleep” campaign was launched by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the U.S. Public Health Service, the SIDS Alliance, and the Association of SIDS and Infant Mortality Programs.

Most people don’t know that side sleeping is not safe. If your baby sleeps on his side rather than his back, his chances of getting SIDS doubled because if you place your baby on his side he can easily end up on his tummy.

If your baby becomes six or seven months old, he will be able to roll over in both directions, making you to keep on his back at night. Make sure that your relatives and caretakers know not to place your baby on his tummy to sleep.

Putting your baby on his back all the time can cause him to develop a flat spot on the back or side of his head, called plagiocephaly or flat head syndrome.

SIDS is the sudden infant death syndrome. It is the unexplained death of an infant who is younger than 1 year old.

SIDS can strike without warning, even in healthy infants also. Most SIDS is related to sleep.

No single risk factor is likely to be sufficient to cause a SIDS death.

Rather, several risk factors combined may contribute to the sudden death of an infant.

SIDS occurs between 2 to 4 months of age and incidence increases during cold weather.

Risk factors for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome:

Stomach sleeping:

The important risk factor is stomach sleeping. Numerous studies have found a higher incidence of SIDS among babies placed on their stomachs to sleep than among those sleeping on their backs or sides.

Research shows that risk of SIDS is 1.7 to 12.9 percent higher if your child sleeps on his tummy instead of his back. Stomach sleeping puts pressure on your child’s jaw, therefore narrowing the airway and making it difficult in breathing.

Another reason that stomach sleeping increase the risk of SIDS is rebreathing his own exhaled air, especially if the infant is sleeping on a soft mattress or with a pillow near the face.