Sleep Apnea – What you Need to Know about Sleep Apnea
If you snore, wake up frequently at night, get up feeling unrested, fall asleep frequently during the day and have no energy you may have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a serious sleep disorder that causes you to stop breathing while you sleep, typically a person with sleep apnea may stop and start breathing several times in a night. You may be aware of these starts and stops or you may not and only experience the other symptoms of this disorder, your spouse may have lay awake at night and experienced the frightening sensation of watching you stop breathing momentarily.
Other symptoms of sleep apnea include having headaches during the day, snoring loudly and waking up at night gasping for air or choking. Many people find that sleep apnea affects their entire life, they may find themselves unable to drive or hold a job, they may always be tired or they may be severely depressed. It is important to get your condition treated if it is affecting your life this way, especially since sleep apnea can cause other serious conditions such as cardiac arrest, congestive heart failure and high blood pressure.
There are two main types of sleep apnea that can appear apart from each other or may both be present at the same time. The most common type of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep apnea, where the muscles around the airway relax and collapse momentarily stopping breathing. The other type is central sleep apnea, this is here the brain fails to send the correct signals to the muscles in your airway instructing them to breathe.
Sleep apnea can be caused by several things but the most common cause for this condition is lifestyle factors. Being overweight is the single greatest common denominator in sleep apnea, other lifestyle choices such as smoking and drinking can also cause sleep apnea. Other factors may be allergies, age or other illnesses.
If you have sleep apnea you will have several choices in getting it treated. You can treat it by going to a doctor and having him prescribe a CPAP machine, this machine forces air down your air passages to keep them open. This type of treatment is not for everybody, as it can cause infection for some people and make it difficult for others to breathe. It is perhaps the best treatment for someone that has severe sleep apnea and needs something for the interim until they can get results from any lifestyle changes they need to make.
There are other treatments such as devices that are designed to keep airways open while you sleep. While there are many different types of devices all of them are designed to reposition and keep in place your lower jaw. This keeps the airway open and decreases snoring which can diminish your sleep apnea as well. My snoring solution is one such option, a sling that holds your jaw in the optimal position to allow you to breathe through the night. The creators of this sling are so sure you will love it they offer a 90 day guarantee on every purchase.
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