Learning about sleep apnea causes and risks can help discover the right treatment program
When a person has sleep apnea, they will stop breathing up to hundreds of times a night, interrupting vital sleep cycles. Oxygen saturation can drop to critical levels. Oxygen deprivation may lead to cardiac issues and high blood pressure. Learning, memory and concentration are all adversely affected. Because sleep apnea has several serious side effects, finding specific sleep apnea causes is important for every sleep apnea patient, so appropriate treatment can be found to relieve the symptoms.
There are several sleep apnea causes associated with this disorder, and they can be related to the specific type of sleep apnea you happen to have. This can be determined by a sleep test. Your doctor will also want to do a thorough physical to reveal other possible causes of your sleep disorder. Then your doctor can discuss a proper treatment plan.
Preventable sleep apnea causes include smoking, obesity, and alcohol or drug abuse.
If a patient has one of these risk factors, they could possibly improve their sleep apnea or even stop their need for CPAP treatment by changing their lifestyle and personal habits. Patients should strive to lose weight, quit smoking, and refrain from alcohol and drug use before bed. Unfortunately, these are easier said than done.
- Smoking irritates the airway causing it to swell, and many patients who discontinue smoking will eventually experience fewer symptoms of sleep apnea .
- Obesity contributes to extra fat being deposited in and around the throat and oral cavity. Recent studies have also found that sleep apnea may contribute to obesity, so these two conditions need to be addressed together.
- Alcohol or drug abuse causes the body to relax so completely that it loses muscle tone, causing the airway to collapse. If the brain is in a deeply altered state, it cannot tell the body to tighten the airway muscles. Common over-the-counter sleep aids contain sedatives that can make sleep apnea worse. For this reason, sleep apnea sufferers should never take sleep aids without consulting a doctor.
Some sleep apnea causes cannot be easily controlled.
Sleep apnea causes such as anatomical deformities in the throat and airways, family history, aging, enlarged tonsils and adenoids, and being male all contribute to the increasing the risk of suffering from sleep apnea. If your head and neck shape is stout and squat and if your mouth is smaller than normal, sleep apnea may occur. Since anatomy is hereditary, a family history is another risk factor a patient can’t change. Aging brings on changes in the brain’s signals which affect the throat muscles and waking habits. Enlarged tonsils, tongue, and adenoids can take up space and decrease the size of the airway. More men suffer from sleep apnea than women, although researchers are not yet sure why this is true.
Sleep apnea is sometimes a symptom of another disorder
Sleep apnea can be a symptom instead of a primary disorder. Downs Syndrome, severe heartburn or GERD, vocal cord paralysis and other disorders are all primary conditions that can cause breathing cessation, obstructions in the airway or airway collapse. Careful and thorough management of the primary illness can reduce the severity of nighttime sleep-related apnea. This is one of the major reasons why your doctor will want to do a thorough medical exam and sleep study to find out exactly why your sleep apnea is occurring. Once the sleep apnea causes are understood, the right treatment can be found.
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