People who have suffer from breaks in their breathing at night are often diagnosed with sleep apnea. However, this diagnosis is often incorrect: many times, people are actually suffering from Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome (or UARS), a condition that causes similar problems, but which is caused by obstructions in your throat. Understanding the differences can help you get a more accurate diagnosis from your doctor.
Understanding The Differences
The major difference between UARS and sleep apnea lies in the number of pauses (or apneas) that occur during the night. Someone with severe sleep apnea often suffers from as many as 30 pauses in breath in an hour. However, someone with UARS usually suffers from five or less, though that number varies
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Other symptoms that set it apart from sleep apnea include low blood pressure, poor circulation (resulting in cold hands and feet), and difficulty sleeping on your back.
Treatments For UARS
One nice thing about UARS is that the treatment methods for it and sleep apnea are essentially the same. The most commonly prescribed treatment for both is Continuous Positive Airway Pressure or CPAP machines.
This method utilizes a breathing machine that helps keep the obstructions in your throat from causing a stoppage in your breathing. However, other treatments for UARS include:
Mouth guards (that keep the mouth open) Positional therapy (or sleeping on your side) Nasal steroids Weight loss Surgery
The method utilized for you will vary, depending on your personal needs. For example, if your symptoms are relatively light, you may be able to get away with simply sleeping on your side. However, extreme cases (in which a person's life is threatened) make surgery to remove the obstructions
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) describes the situation when the patients are pauses in breathing or infrequent breathing during sleep and is usually associated with reduction in blood oxygen saturation. In recent decades, sleep quality has decreased significantly. Large segments of population suffer at least occasionally from sleep disorders such as, difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, disturbing sleep patterns. Obstructive sleep apnea is a common disorder, also known as sleep apnea-hypopnea. It is recognized as an important cause of medical morbidity and motility, and it's associated with a wide range of significant medical squeal, including metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease and arterial hypertension. Smoking is a significant
Do you or your bed partner suffer from loud, regular snoring? Snoring can be the first indication that you may have a sleep breathing disorder. Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that commonly goes undiagnosed and can lead to high blood pressure, increased risk of a heart attack, daytime fatigue, and even death. Our office can offer a solution to your snoring or sleep apnea
Sleep Apnea is a chronic sleep disorder causing shallow, infrequent or pauses in breathing. According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep apnea affects more than 18 million Americans and is as common as type two diabetes. Common in both children and adults, there are three main types of sleep apnea. The first is central apnea, followed by the most common form, obstructive apnea and finally the combination of both, mixed/ complex apnea. Although these three types of apnea have differing symptoms and treatments, they all share negative effects on the body and sleep cycles. The quality of sleep is usually lower than normal, as the pauses in breathing can often bring apnea patients from a deep to a shallow slumber, as the body’s natural warning for oxygen. This lack of deep sleep can also cause drowsiness and fatigue during the daytime in addition to eyesight problems and reduced reaction times. Sleep apnea, occurring in both children and adults is higher in prevalence in Hispanic and African-American men.
Sleep apnea is a common sleeping disorder where a person has experiences of not breathing during sleep. Over 20 million Americans, mostly overweight men, suffer from sleep apnea. Despite these numbers, sleep apnea is often not treated directly because its symptoms are thought to be those of depression, stress, or just loud snoring. There may be a genetic component to this disorder as it often occurs within families.People with sleep apnea stop breathing for at least 10 seconds at a time; these short stops in breathing can happen up to 400 times every night.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep–breathing disorder characterized by momentary episodes of either complete breathing cessation for periods of ten seconds or more (apnea) or significant reductions in breathing amplitude (hypopnea) caused by a collapsed or obstructed airway; these two conditions can lead to hypoxemia (low levels of oxygen in blood) and hypercapnia (high levels of carbon dioxide in blood). Patients are categorized as having mild, moderate or severe OSA depending on the apnea/hypopnea index (AHI), which is defined as the total numbers of apnea/hypopnea episodes per hour of sleep. In normal individuals the index is usually 5 or lower, 5-15 in mild, 15-30 in moderate and 30 or more in severe OSA patients (1, 2). In patients with mild OSA the oxyhemoglobin saturation drops to 95% and can drop below 80% in severe cases. Obstruction of the airways results in greater breathing effort and fluctuations in intrathoracic pressure, resulting in arousal, sleep interruption and reopening of the airway (3).
Have you ever had a partner, spouse, or maybe even a roommate who snores, and maybe it sounds like an obese child breathing in the bed next to you? Something you can sleep through, but what if it sounded so loud you could almost compare it to a motor cycle in the bed next to you? If the type of snoring is more like a motor cycle your partner, spouse, or roommate may be suffering from obstructive sleep apnea. This particular disorder is accompanied by loud snoring and daytime fatigue and breathing stopping and starting during sleep.
Sleep apnea, or cessation of breathing in your sleep disorder from which affects large numbers of people, and that in that many are not aware of. Night apnea in adults is easily recognized by its strong and loud snoring, a person is in the morning after waking often feel exhausted, worn out and run down, and even to sleep for the whole 8 hours.
Sleep apnea is a subtle yet extremely dangerous condition that can cause many issues. It is a condition where the patient ceases breathing for periods of time during sleep (American Sleep Apnea Association). It is caused mainly by blockage of the larynx by overgrown tissue. Sleep apnea makes it difficult to enter deeper stages of sleep which in turn causes many issues. “Left untreated, sleep apnea can have serious and life-shortening consequences: high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, automobile accidents caused by falling asleep at the wheel, diabetes, depression, and other ailments (American Sleep Apnea Association).” Sleep apnea can cause truly life threatening and shortening issues. Sleep apnea is difficult to diagnose. The disorder
Sleep apnea is a life-threatening condition, which is the collapse of the throat and block the airway. Also known as obstructive sleep apnea – OSA, it is associated with obesity, and one of the major risk for heart disease. According to Dr. O’Neil in an OSA the upper airway closes off because the muscles that hold it open lose tone. Therefore, each time the airway closes, there is a pause in breathing. The sleep deprivation worseness obesity as well as causes a severe fatigue during the day. In addition, sleep apnea increase risk for high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke (American Heart Association, 2015).
Sleep apnea has many different possible causes. In adults, the most common cause of OSA is obesity, which is associated with soft tissue of the throat and mouth. With adults there are many other factors associated with the condition. In children, causes of obstructive sleep apnea often include enlarged tonsils or adenoids and dental conditions such as a large overbite. Some of the less common causes include a tumor or growth in the airway, and birth defects such as Down syndrome and Pierre-Robin syndrome (Jensen). No matter the age, if OSA goes untreated for too long it can lead to serious complications, including accidents, cardiovascular disease, premature death. If you are experiencing any signs and symptoms related to obstructive sleep
Most people do not realize that they have Sleep Apnea because it happens while they are sleeping. It is usually the person’s significant other that helps identify this disorder. In my case, my wife helped identify my Sleep Apnea disorder. One morning she said that I was not breathing normal while I was sleeping . The tipping point for me came when on two occasions I woke up from sleeping, I sat up in bed and I couldn’t breathe. This lasted for about 30 seconds. At that point I knew I had to go see the doctor to find out what was going on. The doctor set up a sleep study for me. A common method to diagnose sleep apnea is a sleep study. A sleep study is usually performed at a sleep center that specializes in monitoring your sleep. Some of the things they will monitor are: sleep state, eye movement, muscle activity, airflow, heart rate, respiratory effort, and blood oxygen levels. By monitoring these things they can determine if you have sleep apnea and the severity of
In sleep apnea, an individual has trouble inhaling because the airways between the lungs, nose and mouth have collapsed while the person is sleeping. The sleeper is often awakened several times each night for short moments as they wake up gasping for air.
Sleep apnea patients may experience sharp drop in their blood oxygen levels which can lead to aging, and high blood pressure. Sleep apnea can also affect your relationships. The loud noises and gasps can cause spouses to use separate bedrooms. Sleep deprivation may also inhibit a man’s sexual interests and his ability to obtain an erection, because he gets too tired easily.
There are various symptoms of sleep apnea. Because Apnea is experienced during sleeping most of the symptoms are manifested during waking hours of the person. However, there are also some manifestations experienced by the person himself and observed by his/her loved ones when sleeping. These manifestations occur in both types of apnea.
The first and most researched sleep disorder is sleep apnea. Sleep apnea does not affect children as often as it effects adults, but it is still a rising concern. Sleep apnea occurs in about 2 per cent of children, mainly between the ages of one through eight. But it can also show up in older children and even infants. (Klein). Research says that young blacks are more at risk than young whites. (Fritz p 83). Children with sleep apnea briefly stop breathing many times during the night due to an obstruction in the respiratory tract. Most of the time it is related to enlarged tonsils and adenoids or to obesity. As the child will gasp for there breath during sleep, they awaken for a few moments to regain there normal breathing and then they immediately return back to sleep. Because the child will be awoken by this many times during the night, this cause sleep deprivation. (Common Sleep Problems AA). The physical symptoms of sleep apnea are excessive daytime sleepiness, snoring, restless sleep, heavy and irregular breathing, excessive perspiring during the night, bad dreams, sleeping with there mouth open, sleeps in strange positions, morning headaches, learning problems, excessive irritability, depression, changes in personality, difficulty