Sleep Apnea Symptoms

What Is Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea is a common disease in which one or more pauses occurs at the time of breathing or breath becomes low at the time when you are sleeping.

Breath pauses can last for few seconds to few minutes. They may also occur five to thirty times or even more than hour. Normal breathing again starts but with chocking sound or loud snort.

This is an ongoing condition which disturbs the sleep more than three times each week. When pauses the breath or slows down then you move from the deep or light sleep.

Due to sleep apnea, your quantity of sleep becomes low and you feel tired during the day. Daytime sleep is one of the causes of sleep apnea.

Types of sleep apnea:

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA):

This is a common type of the sleep apnea. It's caused because of a breathing obstruction that stops the flow of air in mouth and nose.

Central Sleep Apnea (CSA):

CSA is a rarer kind of sleep apnea. This occurs when delayed happens at the time when brain gives instructions to the body for breathing. Central nervous system's disorder caused because of this disease or the injury happens such as a brain tumor, stroke, viral infection, or chronic respiratory disease. Even breathing cessation are different in OSA and CSA, the symptoms are much similar. Medications are taken for treating the CSA.

Mixed sleep apnea:

This is a combination of obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea. The treatment for the person suffering from the mixed sleep apnea will help only for obstruction in the airways but not cure completely.

Causes and risk factors of sleep apnea:

Shape of neck and head may create a smaller than the normal airway.
Adenoids or large tonsils or other anatomical differences.
Fifty percent of the people suffering from sleep apnea being obese or overweight.
Throat muscles and tongue relax more than normal during sleep.
Smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke
Snoring - Snoring can cause the soft palate to lengthen, which in turn can obstruct the airway.
Family history of sleep apnea - No specific genetic marker for sleep apnea has been discovered, but obstructive sleep apnea seems to run in families. This may be a result of anatomic abnormalities that run in the family
Nasal congestion, nasal blockages, and nasal irritants
Other physical conditions, such as immune system abnormalities, severe heartburn or acid reflux and high blood pressure. It isn't clear whether the conditions are the cause or the result of sleep apnea
Other disorders and syndromes - Hypothyroidism, acromegaly, amyloidosis, vocal cord paralysis, post-polio syndrome, neuromuscular disorders, Marfan's syndrome, and Down Syndrome

Sleep Apnea Symptoms:

Obstructive sleep apnea symptoms are given below:

Excessive daytime sleepiness, which is falling asleep when you normally should not, such as while you are eating, talking, or driving.
Morning or night headaches. About half of all people with sleep apnea report headaches.
Waking with an unrefreshed feeling after sleep, having problems with memory and concentration, feeling tired, and experiencing personality changes.
Heartburn or a sour taste in the mouth at night.
Getting up during the night to urinate (nocturia).
Swelling of the legs if you are obese.
Sweating and chest pain while you are sleeping.

General sleep apnea symptoms that are commonly noticed may include:

Episodes of not breathing (apnea), which may occur as few as 5 times an hour (mild apnea) to more than 50 times an hour (severe apnea). How many episodes you have determines how severe your sleep apnea is.
Restless tossing and turning during sleep.
Loud snoring. Almost all people who have sleep apnea snore, but not all people who snore have sleep apnea.
Nighttime choking or gasping spells. There is a particular period in older adults when they stop breathing during the sleep and therefore it is hard for identifying whether they have sleep apnea or not. At the time of sleep, occurrences of short lapses in the breathing do not cause dropping of oxygen level.

Sleep apnea symptoms in children depend on the age of children.

Symptoms in the children smaller than five years contain mouth breathing, snoring, sweating, restlessness, and the waking up a lot.
Symptoms in children of five years old or older contains bed wetting, snoring, doing poorly in school, and not grows quickly according to their age. The behaviors of these children are different then normal children.
These children are always snore but are not sleepy during the day time which is commonly occurred in adults.
Sleep apnea causes development delays and right side of the heart gets bigger also including falling asleep or intense urge at the time of moving legs.

Treatment for sleep apnea:

For treating the sleep apnea, the most common device is used known as Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP). This device provides constant pressure of air despite you breathing in or out.

CPAP is useful for preventing the sleep apnea symptoms but some people feels uncomfortable with this device. Now days, this device is made quieter and lighter. Many options are provided by the new device so people find out the device which is suitable for them. "Bilevel PAP" is option for CPAP and it switches from higher to lower air pressure at the time of exhalation and "AutoPAP", which is used as internal regulator, which adjust the pressure automatically.

Befits of continuous positive airway pressure that is CPAP is given below. After using the CPAP device, following benefits may be identified by the patient regularly:

Restoration of normal sleep patterns.
Less anxiety and depression and better mood.
Greater alertness and less daytime sleepiness.
Improvements in work productivity.
Patients' bed partners also report improvement in their own sleep when their mates use CPAP, even though objective sleep tests showed no real difference in the partners' sleep quality.
Better concentration and memory. Some adults with symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have improved after CPAP treatments for apnea. In two studies, however, equal improvements were also observed in people on sham CPAP, suggesting that the actual cognitive benefits from CPAP may be modest.

Use following links for more details on the other aspects of sleep apnea: