What are the Causes and Treatment of Sleep Apnea?
Did you know? In India, around 4.4% to as high as 14% Indian population suffers from sleep apnea. Talking demographically, around 4.4%-20% of Indian males and around 2.5%-7.4% of Indian females suffer from it. It also prevails in babies, children and young adults. If untreated, it can lead to severe health problems such as high blood pressure, heart problems, metabolic dysfunctions and liver issues. Wondering what sleep apnea is? In this blog, we’ll talk about the causes and treatment of this generally unnoticed severe sleeping disorder.
What is sleep apnea?
It is a potentially serious sleeping disorder in which the patient has interrupted breathing during sleep. They can repeatedly stop and start breathing. This process can happen as high as 100 times during sleep, making the body feel tired even after a long night’s sleep. A person most likely has sleep apnea if they snore and repeatedly feel fatigued after waking up.
If remained untreated can lead to severe health problems such as- cardiomyopathy (when the muscle tissues of the heart enlarge), diabetes, heart failure, heart attacks, stroke and hypertension.
What happens when someone with sleep apnea stops breathing?
When someone stops breathing, their heart rate drops as their body is deprived of oxygen for a longer time. At the end of the period of no breathing, their involuntary reflexes are put to work to startle awake the person so that they gasp and start breathing again. When this happens, the body starts craving for oxygen, and the heart rate accelerates- shooting their blood pressure. The risk is acute when this occurs at a rate of 30 times or more in one hour. Below this frequency, the risk is comparatively milder.
What are the types of sleep apnea?
Obstructive sleep apnea- the most common type of sleep apnea. It happens due to repeated partial or complete blockage of upper airway passage during sleep. This makes the chest muscles and diaphragm work more challengingly as they want to open the blockage. Breathing resumes when the person gasp for air or startle wakes up. Such apneic episode can cause rhythmic heart irregularities and hinder the flow of oxygen to vital organs.
Central sleep apnea- In this, the airway is not blocked, but there is an instability in the respiratory control system due to which the brain forgets to send signals to the muscle to breathe.
Mixed sleep apnea- A combination of both obstructive and central sleep apnea. Sometimes a patient with obstructive sleep apnea can post a specific treatment develop central sleep apnea.
What are the symptoms of sleep apnea?
There are the symptoms that can help you understand if you suffer from either of the sleep apneas:
- Snoring
- Daytime fatigue and sleepiness
- Sudden nighttime awakening with a sensation of choking or gasping
- Frequent nighttime awakening and restlessness during sleep
- Sore throat upon awakening
- Dry mouth upon awakening
- Headaches
- Cognitive problems such as trouble concentrating, irritability and forgetfulness
- Sexual dysfunctions
- Mood disturbances such as anxiety and depression
- Night sweats
- Frequent nighttime urination
- Sluggishness
- Daytime mouth breathing and difficulty swallowing
- Unusual positions while sleeping such as on the hands and knees or with the neck elongated
- Bedwetting
What are the causes of sleep apnea?
Here are some factors that increase the risk of sleep apnea:
- Being overweight or obese is one of the primary causes that increase the risk of sleep apnea. Fat deposit on the upper side of the airway and your neck lead to narrower airways, obstructing breathing.
- Tonsils and adenoids enlargement, especially in children, can narrow the airways and obstruct breathing.
- Males are two or three times more likely to have sleep apnea than females, though females can increase their risk of having sleep apnea if they are overweight or obese. It occurs more significantly in older adults; the risk rises above 40 years of age.
- Hereditary- If you have family members who suffer from the condition, your risk increases.
- The use of alcohol, tranquillizers or sedatives relaxes the muscles in the throat, worsening sleep apnea.
- People who smoke are three times more likely to have obstructive sleep apnea than people who don’t smoke. Smoking increases fluid retention and inflammation in the upper airway.
- If you have difficulty breathing via your nose (nasal congestion), whether due to a structural problem or an allergy, you are more likely to develop obstructive sleep apnea.
- Some medical conditions such as heart disorders, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, asthma, PCOS, and lung disorders lead to a higher risk of sleep apnea and are aggravated by sleep apnea.
- Using opioid medicines increase the risk of central sleep apnea.
How can one diagnose sleep apnea?
If you have symptoms or if you are obese with a few symptoms- then you must consult a doctor to see if you have sleep apnea. The diagnoses will include sleep evaluation with a sleep specialist, or an overnight sleep study called polysomnography (PSG). Or for adults, another method can be a home sleep test, recording a fewer body function than PSG in the comfort of your home.
What is the treatment for sleep apnea?
Ignoring smoking and alcohol consumption, avoiding certain sleeping pills, using nasal sprays to reduce congestion, and using specific devices and wedge pillow can help reduce sleep apnea along with other medical advice.
But the most important is for overweight people to lose weight. Even a 10% loss can significantly reduce apneic episodes. Although losing weight can be difficult with sleep apnea since there are many metabolic dysfunctions and an increase in appetite. Only lifestyle changes might not help cure sleep apnea. Here comes the association between bariatric surgery and sleep apnea.
Bariatric surgery and sleep apnea risk reduction go hand in hand, as obese patients generally shed up to 40% excess weight within 6-12 months post-surgery. Apart from a direct connection between bariatric surgery and sleep apnea risk reduction, there can be indirect ways in which bariatric surgery helps to treat sleep apnea.
Since sleep apnea can also occur due to cardiac disorders, PCOS, type 2 diabetes and asthma- bariatric surgery has proven to be effective in treating these conditions in obese patients. In most cases, it has also led to a complete remission of type 2 diabetes.
What is bariatric surgery?
Bariatric surgery is an innovation in robotics and bariatrics that alters the digestive system to promote weight loss. A BMI above 30 and BMI 25 with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes are considered conditions of obesity that potentially requires bariatric surgery as a long-term solution in both adults and children.
Bariatric surgery restricts the amount of food the stomach can hold by different bariatric procedures. This causes malabsorption of nutrients or both malabsorption and gastric restriction. Most of the procedures are done by minimally invasive technique (laparoscopic procedures).
In simple words, bariatric surgery is done to shed off excess weight baggage from the body and to reduce the risk of potential obesity-associated life-threatening diseases. The most common bariatric surgery procedures include- sleeve gastrectomy, gastric bypass, adjustable gastric band, duodenal switch and biliopancreatic diversion. To know more, call us on- 6232012342 and meet an expert now!
