What You Need to Know About Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea doesn't necessarily affect overweight patients exclusively — anyone with a family history is susceptible. Other sleep apnea risk factors include high blood pressure and smoking.
By Norra MacReady
Medically reviewed by Pat F. Bass III, MD, MPH
Print Article Print E-mail Article Email
Maybe your sleeping partner says your snoring sounds like a 747 landing in the next room; maybe you just don’t wake up refreshed after what you thought was a good night’s sleep and feel tired during the day. These are two signs of sleep apnea — brief periods when you stop breathing while sleeping — causing sleep disturbances that usually go unnoticed but can affect your ability to function during the day.
What Is Sleep Apnea?
The Basics of Sleep Apnea
The most common type of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), in which breathing is disrupted by an obstruction in the airway of the nose, mouth, or throat. Another less common type is central sleep apnea, in which case there’s nothing blocking the airway, but the brain doesn't alert your breathing muscles to get moving. Some people have both types at once, called mixed sleep apnea.
Whatever the cause, sleep apnea makes it hard to breathe while you’re asleep. The resulting drop in your blood oxygen level triggers your brain to disturb your sleep so you can breathe, but not enough to wake you entirely, so you’re not aware of what’s happening. This may be why you drag through the day without knowing the cause, explains neurologist Mark Mahowald, MD, medical director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. Depending on the severity of the sleep apnea, these episodes can happen five to 100 times an hour, Dr. Mahowald notes.
Snoring and daytime sleepiness are the two most common sleep apnea symptoms, but other possible symptoms include:
* Problems with memory, learning, or concentration
* Headaches
* Urinating at night
* Irritability, depression, or mood swings
* A dry throat after waking up
Sleep apnea is surprisingly common. According to the National Institutes of Health, it is estimated that more than 12 million Americans have this condition, most prevalent in men over age 65.
