What Is Sleep Apnea?
By Rachel Berret
Do you often feel sleepy in the mornings because you have not had enough sleep from the previous night? Do you often feel anxiety, irritability, headaches and difficulties in performing and accomplishing your daily activities? Do you often have poor concentration, memory and attention? Do you experience insomnia? If you answered yes, to most if not all of these questions, you may be suffering from a condition called sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea is a chronic condition which is characterized by reduced breathing patterns or no breathing at all, which lasts 10 seconds or more and can recur several times in your sleep. This condition mostly occurs in adults than in children, which causes a significant drop in your oxygen levels in the blood. Because of the reduction or the complete absence of airflow, people suffering from this may be awaken or have instead of a deep sleep, a shallow and easily-disturbed sleep.
Sleep apnea is a condition that is very hard to diagnose. It cannot be verified through blood tests and other examinations. Sometimes, you may not even notice it yourself since it only occurs when you are at sleep. It may take for a family member to first notice it along with the signs of this condition. A health care provider may perform a review through the patient’s history or he or he can test a person while asleep for two hours to measure the amount of apneas that happen in several intervals. The greater number of apneas in an interval, the more severe the illness is.
There are various types of this condition but the most common is called obstructive sleep apnea. This is normally caused by a blockage in the airways of a person, which in turn which in turn will cause the pauses in breathing or the shallow breathing of a patient suffering from this condition. When a person with obstructive sleep apnea breathes, the air that passes the blocked airways causes a mild to a loud noise commonly referred to as a snore. This happens usually with people that are overweight but can also happen to anyone.
Another type of the condition that is less common is central sleep apnea which happens when your brain does not send the correct information which enables breathing. This condition can happen with obstructive sleep apnea but can also occur alone.
Sleep apnea is a condition that requires long periods of management. This chronic disease, if left untreated may cause high blood pressure, heart attacks, obesity, diabetes, arrhythmias, and may also cause accidents.
Hi. I’m Rachel Berret, a big advocate seeing an osteopath for your health complaints. Osteopaths are manual practitioners that help to eliminate back pain, neck pains, headaches and other pains that can limit your enjoyment of life.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rachel_Berret
Oxygen Is Important: Answering Questions About CPAP Therapy Alternatives And Sleep Apnea
By Ric Savacool
CPAP or “Continuous Positive Airway Pressure” is the number one medical treatment for sleep apnea for good reason. Obstructive Sleep Apnea patients are medical-train-wreck passengers surging for a place to crash. Sleep Apnea is a killer.
Sleep apnea is a medical condition that causes a person’s airway to close while sleeping. The main signs are snoring, waking up gagging and to completely stop breathing when asleep. If you or anyone you know has these traits, chances are the reason is sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea may cause or advance medical problems such as:
· High Blood Pressure
· Diabetes
· Obesity
· Kidney Failure
· Liver Damage
· Nerve Disorders such as Seizures and Epilepsy
· Strokes or “Cerebrovascular Accident” (CVA)
Plus if these don’t end you then this medical villain also decreases oxygen in the blood flowing to the heart which can cause:
· Irregular Heart Beat
· Chest Pain
· Heart Attack or “Myocardial infarction” (MI)
Yes that’s right, sleep apnea can cause:
· Death or “Eternal Dirt Nap” (EDN)
What’s more, this sleepy-time drowning also causes “temporary brain damage” from decreased oxygen to the brain. That’s what my Ears, Nose and Throat (ENT) Doctor said when I was diagnosed with it and what I told my wife just before she was struck by a fit of eye-rolling. It is easy to see why doctors are quick to recommend CPAP machines and masks.
There are alternatives to CPAP therapy. Surgery is the most extreme and expensive. Surgical correction of sleep apnea is not a guaranteed fix as any good ENT Doctor will tell you.
The most basic surgical correction will remove tonsils and adenoids, if you still have them, and may cut out the uvula. You ask, “The WHAT?” The little pink-thingy hanging down in the back of the throat. Do you need it? Not to live but one of the functions of the uvula is to stop food from spilling past your esophagus, the mouth to stomach grocery pipe, and into your trachea or your “wind pipe”. Nice. Yeah a uvula helps keep you from choking every time you eat or drink something. I’ll keep mine, thanks.
There are non-surgical alternatives to CPAP therapy that improve breathing, health and well-being. CPAP does work and some estimate it as 99% effective, if you can tolerate it. If not, you should seek another answer. Not using CPAP is a bad decision which wrecks havoc on your health. It is important to find documented cases of alternative treatment success. Proven. Names and numbers that is. Why? Because oxygen is important.
If you are interested in learning more about CPAP Alternatives- Press on the “CURE IT FOR GOOD” in the footer of this site and see what you can do to help yourself overcome sleep apnea starting today, because after all, life is too short to feel so terrible.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ric_Savacool
admin | 
December 3, 2011 10:53 am
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