If you have sleep apnea, you need to know that you are not alone. It is relatively common, and millions of people around the planet have it. If you have been wondering what a sleep apnea diagnosis means for your life, read on to learn what you need to know about it.
If you suffer from this disorder, you should use a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine while sleeping. It will help you treat your disorder and get you on the path to having a full night’s sleep. This machine uses either a face or nasal mask to pump air while you sleep.
Try losing a few pounds if you suffer from chronic sleep apnea
Controlled studies have proven that people with this sleep disturbance benefit greatly after losing 20 or more pounds. Symptoms may even diminish completely, so you now have yet another reason to get your weight down to a healthier number!
Improve your sleep disorder by slimming down a bit
Recent research showed dramatic improvements in overweight men who shed 25 pounds over one year to reduce sleep apnea symptoms. In some cases, the weight loss resulted in a cure for sleep apnea, where no further treatment was necessary.
If you have sleep apnea, be sure to ask your doctor every five years to have a follow-up sleep study. As your weight and health change, your CPAP pressure may need to be adjusted. The most accurate way to reassess your needs is to have another sleep study with CPAP to determine the appropriate weight.
If you are taking a lot of medicines regularly, sit with your doctor, and discuss how they can be reduced. Side effects from prescription medication can be making your sleep apnea worse. Keep a dialogue open with your doctor and make sure he is up to date on all your symptoms.
If you tend to snore a lot and have difficulties staying asleep, you should see your doctor immediately. You might have a condition known as sleep apnea: find an effective treatment so you can get enough sleep and go through your daily activities without being held back by your health problem.
If you are a smoker, this may be making your sleep apnea more severe. When you smoke a cigarette, the airways in your nose become swollen, restricting the amount of air that you can breathe. Quit smoking if you can. If you can’t give it up entirely, don’t smoke in the evenings before bed.
If you smoke cigarettes and suffer from sleep apnea, now is the best time to quit this habit. When you smoke, you increase the inflammation and the fluid retention in your throat along with your upper airways, which will contribute significantly to this disorder. Once you quit, you should notice your symptoms start to lessen.
Different ways sleep specialists will treat sleep apnea
They may start by treating an underlying medical condition, using oxygen while sleeping, or utilizing breathing devices that will manage your obstructive sleep apnea. They could prescribe medications that will help with the sleepiness but will not help with the apnea itself.
If you suspect that you have sleep apnea, talk to your doctor about undergoing a sleep study. During the survey, you will be hooked to monitors while you sleep. These monitors will tell doctors about the levels of oxygen in your blood, the stages of sleep you enter, and whether or not your breathing is inhibited while you sleep.
Did you know that blowing up a balloon has another benefit besides making your child happy? It is a great exercise to strengthen the airways for those that suffer from sleep apnea. Repeating this balloon inflation five times in succession is recommended to get the most out of this exercise.
Learning more about sleep apnea is important because knowledge can help put your mind at ease. Take the information you have learned in this article and talk to your doctor about it. He or she can then better help you more easily when you know more about this disorder yourself.
