Experts proceed to emphasise the importance of lifestyle changes—especially weight reduction—for treating obstructive sleep apnea.
Obstructive sleep apnea is a disorder during which the airway becomes blocked during sleep, disrupting respiration — sometimes dozens of times in a single night. Having obstructive sleep apnea puts you in danger for quite a few other conditions, including hypertension and stroke.
The importance of weight reduction
The link between extra weight and lack of sleep is well established. People who're chubby usually tend to have extra tissue behind the throat that may collapse onto the airway and block the flow of air to the lungs while sleeping.
Although shedding pounds is claimed to be easy, it will probably yield real results. If chubby and obese people drop extra pounds, it will probably result in sleep deprivation and other health problems. [such as heart disease] go away. Losing just 10 percent of body weight can have a huge impact on sleep deprivation symptoms. In some cases, even losing a big amount of weight can improve the condition.
Other options
ACP also strongly recommends continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP. This is often the first-line treatment for individuals with sleep apnea, as weight reduction could be very difficult to attain. CPAP is a mask or device that matches over the nose and mouth. It blows air into the air ducts to maintain them open at night.
CPAP works well—but not everyone who needs it's able to wear a ventilator. Research has found that half or more of people that try CPAP don't persist with treatment. It takes some getting used to. The excellent news is that changes in technology are making CPAP much easier to tolerate. When CPAP therapy was introduced, it was one-size-fits-all. As we search for more ways to enhance patients' ability to make use of it, there are different sorts of masks being developed.
A continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine prevents sleep apnea by blowing air right into a mask that covers the nose and mouth. Air flow keeps the airways open.
Another alternative to CPAP is an oral appliance. These plastic inserts fit into the mouth and forestall the tongue and tissues in the back of the throat from collapsing into the airway during sleep.
CPAP and oral appliances work well, but they are usually not a cure for sleep apnea. The only sure option to rid yourself of a very good condition is to either drop extra pounds or have surgery to remove excess tissue from the palate or throat. Surgery can have unwanted effects, which is why it's often seen as a final resort. But if you happen to can't afford CPAP or oral appliances and also you're struggling to drop extra pounds, that is an option.
Treatment is personal.
Before you possibly can settle on treatment, you first have to discover that you've sleep apnea. Because respiration pauses occur during sleep, most individuals with apnea don't realize they've it.
Key indicators are nighttime snoring and daytime sleepiness. Your doctor may perform a sleep study, checking your respiration whilst you sleep in a lab or connected to a monitoring device at home. It's necessary to get an objective measurement, like a sleep study, since the treatment you select will depend upon how severe the sleep deprivation is.
Sleep apnea just isn't the identical as pneumonia. You can't try one treatment and expect your symptoms to vanish. Instead, treatment must be individualized. “The best CPAP device is the one you'll use.