Archive for the 'Sleep Apnea' Category

If you have depression, you are five times more likely to develop sleep apnea, a breathing-related sleep disorder, than non-depressed people.

Doctors do not stop with first diagnosis, if the patient has depression, instead detect whether there is breathing-related sleep disorder or not.

Breathing related sleep disorders include chronic and disruptive snoring and obstructive sleep apnea.

When sleep apnea is left untreated, it can lead to hypertension, cognitive deterioration and stroke. It also affects your regular routine and disturbs your social, familial and professional life.

According to the studies, sleep apnea is associated with higher rates of depressive disorder and treating sleep apnea helps in controlling depression in patients.

Link between sleep apnea and depression:

If you have depression, fatigue or social relationship problems, you can have the primary problem of sleep apnea. If you snore, gasp, or pause in breathing during sleep, you have to consult the sleep specialist immediately.

The symptoms of depression such as sad feelings, discouragement, feelings of excessive personnel failures, decrease in self-confidence, inability to derive pleasure from things, and suicidal thoughts can attribute to obstructive sleep apnea, which is an easily treatable medical illness.

Serious side effects are associated with sleep apnea. So, it is called as a life threatening disease. It can cause several physical and psychological problems besides the blood pressure and heart complications.

The latest research has proved that the risk of accidents have increased a lot in the patients who are suffering with sleep apnea. Hallucinations, depressions, mental confusion, fatigue and some psychotic disorders are most often seen in the person who is suffering with sleep apnea.

Due to these aspects, they will be loosing their peace of mind and lot of confusion will be obtained in their work. Due to lack of concentration with more confusion, people with sleep apnea are facing accidents.

The obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is recognized as common problem in children.

This problem is increasing day by day in small children; the daytime attention and behavioral problems are noticed as a cause of this OSAS.

It is most difficult to find out OSAS in small children. The symptoms will not be clear, so it cannot be identified easily.

Some symptoms which helps you to find out sleep apnea in children are snoring, breathing through mouth, poor weight gain or weight loss, enlarged adenoids and tonsils, restless sleep and problems in sleeping, excessive daytime sleeping, daytime behavior and cognitive problems (such as problems in paying attention, hyperactivity and aggressive behavior).

What do parents need to know regarding OSAS in small children?

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) can cause several complications in your children such as headaches, poor growth, high blood pressure in small age and problems in the normal functions of lungs and heart.

This problem of OSAS in children is increasingly being identified as a source of children daytime school and behavioral problems.

If your child is not behaving correctly that means obtaining problems at school and snoring loudly while sleeping, then you must ask your pediatrician about OSAS in children.

People with sleep apnea are likely to have blood vessel injury that may cause high blood pressure in daytime and can lead to heart disease.

The endothelial function is compared in healthy obese people who have sleep apnea with people who do not have sleep apnea.

Endothelium is a thin layer of cells that line the interior surface of blood vessels and regulate blood pressure by dilating vessels.

High blood pressure can damage the endothelium and it can lead to elevation of blood pressure damaging the vessels further.

Sleep apnea is an individual factor to damage the endothelium. Sleep apnea directly affects blood pressure by the following factors:

• Blood pressure fluctuates suddenly and widely in response to episodes of sleep apnea and hypopnea.
• These fluctuations possibly are due to a sudden surge in the sympathetic nervous system, which controls responses of involuntary muscles in blood vessels and heart and play a role in sleep apnea.
• These fluctuations can lead to blood vessel constriction and overtime can lead to high blood pressure and heart damage.

Many people who are suffering with obstructive sleep apnea are turning towards complementary and alternative therapies (CAM) for treatment. Before using these CAM therapies, it is best to take the advice from the doctor, but CAM therapies are now replacing traditional treatments.

There are many alternative therapies to treat sleep apnea. Acupuncture, nutrition therapy, and homeopathy are likely to have a positive effect.

Acupuncture and sleep apnea:

Identifying the acupuncture body points and inserting needles is the way of treating sleep apnea. Acupressure is a technique to apply mild pressure to the acupuncture body points. It can be done by pinching the point lightly between thumb and finger. The body points should be related to sleep issues to induce sleep and treat sleep apnea.

Patients who have obstructive sleep apnea had more than two and half times risk of developing heart attack compared to people who do not have apnea. The more severe the sleep apnea, the greater the risk of developing heart disease and stroke.

In obstructive sleep apnea, upper airway narrows or collapses during sleep. Apnea ends with partial arousal that may disrupt sleep hundreds of times a night. Many patients are unaware of their snoring and disturbing sleep during night.

During sleep, your heart and blood pressure drop. This allows your heart to rest. Snoring, pauses in breathing and gasping or choking for air prevent you from getting deep sleep your body needs. This can result in hypertension.

Metabolic syndrome is defined as collection of risk factors of heart disease which increases the chances of developing stroke, diabetes and heart disease.

According to new study, teenagers with sleep related breathing disorder are at increased risk of developing metabolic syndrome.

Sleep apnea and risk of metabolic syndrome:

When a person is having sleep apnea, soft tissues in the throat collapse during sleep and your breathing stops many times in the night.

You have to wake up to restart your breathing. If you sleep apnea, you will have the symptoms like daytime sleepiness and snoring.

You have metabolic syndrome when you are diagnosed with high blood pressure, high density lipoprotein level and triglyceride level. Metabolic syndrome commonly occurs in people who have central obesity, diabetes mellitus, and high triglyceride to HDL ratio of greater than three.

Due to repeated sleep interruptions due to sleep apnea, oxygen dips can raise the body’s levels of stress hormones like cortisol.

Due to the raise in stress hormones, blood sugar and blood pressure levels increase and problems with cholesterol metabolism increase. Teenagers who are obese and have metabolic syndrome should be tested for sleep apnea.