A person who has sleep apnea stops breathing for ten or more seconds while sleeping, then wakes enough to start breathing again and falls back asleep. This can happen as many as 60 times a night. It's a problem because sleep isn’t simply a blackout: it runs in cycles of lighter and deeper sleep, which are disrupted when breathing stops. Someone suffering from sleep apnea can be in bed for 8 hours but wake up exhausted, because of the frequent disruption of his or her sleep cycles.
If someone who sleeps with or near you has sleep apnea, you’ll probably hear loud snoring, then an abrupt silence, then a snorting or choking sound as the person starts breathing again. On the other hand, if you’re the one with the problem you may not realize it: people with this sleep disorder often don’t remember waking up in the night. You will nevertheless feel the effects of lack of sleep, which include morning headaches, excessive sleepiness during the day, and irritability. Left untreated, sleep apnea can make you unable to function well during the daytime and can lead to high blood pressure, heart attack, or stroke.
The way to find out if you have sleep apnea is to visit a physician specializing in sleep disorders, who will make a diagnosis based on your medical history, a physical examination, and an overnight sleep study to find out the number of times your sleep is interrupted during the course of a night.
How is sleep apnea treated? That depends on the reasons for the apnea. The milder form—fortunately also the most common— is obstructive apnea, in which the muscles of the throat relax so much that the airway collapses. Your physician may suggest not sleeping on your back, losing weight, or quitting smoking. For some, a simple dental appliance that repositions the lower jaw and tongue may be all that's needed. This same dental appliance is, incidentally, used to prevent or lessen snoring.
Sleep apnea is a condition that must be diagnosed by a physician, not a dentist. If a physician confirms that you have the problem, or if you snore and want to stop, I’ll be happy to make a custom-fitted dental appliance and adjust the fit to make it work as effectively as possible.
If you have general questions about dentistry that you'd like to see addressed on this blog, feel free to email me at sdurante@earthlink.net . The information on this blog is presented for general education only: consult a dentist for advice on specific problems, diagnoses and treatment.
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