How to Recognize Sleep Apnea

Contributor

By Richard Ferri
eHow Contributing Writer

Article Rating:

(19 Ratings)

Sleep apnea is a common medical disorder that often goes unrecognized.

Sleep apnea is a common medical disorder that impacts millions of people during their sleep with breathing pauses or shallow breathing. Breathing can be interrupted and paused anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. People with sleep apnea will frequently feel unrefreshed from sleep and experience excessive drowsiness during the day. Often times, the person with sleep apnea may not even suspect symptoms until their sleeping partner starts to complain about their snoring, nighttime restlessness and other annoying symptoms.

This article is going to explore the signs and symptoms of sleep apnea, and review some diagnostic and treatment options.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

A review of your level of energy and daytime drowsiness
A list of sleep complaints from yourself and/or sleep partner
A honest review of how often you are using sleep medications on a regular basis
A recent physical from your healthcare provider.

Step 1

Your sleep partner may be a good source of information about your sleep quality.

Seriously listen to a sleeping partner's concerns about your excessive snoring, arm/limb movements, nighttime awakenings and restlessness. It is important to not dismiss these complaints as trivial or related to another personal issue.
Step 2

Falling asleep during the day or feeling excessively drowsy is a warning sign of possible sleep apnea.

Review your typical energy level during an average day. While everyone has on "off" day now and then, people with sleep apnea tend to be chronically tired and poorly rested. Sleep should be "refreshing" the majority of the time. If yours is not, then you may want to consider talking to your healthcare provider.
Step 3

Consider asking your healthcare provider to order a sleep study, a simple, non-invasive test that monitors various physiological parameters of your sleeping pattern. Most sleep studies are done in a sleep clinic that provides a private, motel-like room. They are not done in a hospital bed. You simply show up at the scheduled time and do your regular nighttime routine and go to sleep (a technician will place some monitor pads on you much like EKG pads which are fairly innocuous).
Step 4

If the sleep study does confirm the diagnosis of sleep apnea there are several treatment options ranging from using a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) mask at night to medications and even surgery. The CPAP masks of the past have been replaced with much easier and more comfortable models. Also, the medication Nuvigial has recently been approved by the FDA for people with diagnosed sleep apnea to help combat excessive daytime drowsiness and other related conditions.

Comments

mvalora said

Flag This Comment

on 8/23/2009 Helpful info on sleep apnea!

onenight said

on 8/5/2009 So many people don't even know the have it. Great article. I gave it 5 stars & Recommended ya. =)

RFerriANP said

on 7/19/2009 Not sure when you had your testing done or the treatment tried. However, to all readers the newer CPAP machines (and medications available)have greatly improved sleep apnea treatment. So if it has been a few years you may be surprised by the advances...Ric

dmarquette said

on 7/19/2009 Been there and done that. It is neither comfortable nor innocuous. Felt like I didn't sleep at all, but I experienced 64 episodes of apnea. Talk to your healthcare professional about the scary long term effects of this condition.