There are several reasons someone may suffer from sleep apnea, including:
- Obstruction to the airways
- Miscommunication between the brain and the muscles that control breathing
- Lifestyle and hereditary factors
What Is Sleep Apnea?
Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that causes a patient to repeatedly stop breathing for increments of time while asleep. Rather than continually inhaling and exhaling rhythmically throughout the night, as one does throughout the day, a patient with sleep apnea stops and starts breathing throughout the night as they sleep.
What Types of Sleep Apnea Can a Patient Suffer From?
There are two primary types of sleep apnea a patient can suffer from, which are:
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA)
Obstructive sleep apnea is a condition in which airways become blocked while sleeping, preventing you from breathing freely throughout the night. For some, the muscles in their face, neck, and mouth become too relaxed when the body is asleep, causing the soft tissue around them to settle and block the windpipe. For others, it’s an issue of excessive weight pushing down on the relaxed muscles while in a sleeping position.
Relaxed Muscles
It’s true that, for all humans, sleeping causes certain muscles to relax, including the ones responsible for controlling breathing. When the body is at rest and the brain is in a subconscious state, muscles like the genioglossus and the pharyngeal muscles relax to an extent. This, combined with certain sleeping positions, can increase your likelihood of airways becoming partially blocked due to muscle relaxation, which leads to obnoxious but harmless bouts of snoring. For many, these muscles do not relax to the point of closing or blocking airways entirely. But for those with OSA, they do.
Excess Weight
Some patients with OSA experience sleep apnea due to a combination of relaxed breathing muscles and added pressure on those muscles from excess weight in the neck. Too much weight creates fat deposits that can place pressure on already relaxed breathing muscles, causing tissue to sink down further than they should and fully obstruct the windpipe.
Central Sleep Apnea (CSA)
Central sleep apnea is less common than OSA, and it occurs because of miscommunication between the brain and your breathing muscles. However, unlike OSA, CSA typically affects patients during the day just as much as it affects patients throughout the night or while sleeping.
CSA is a neurological issue that can be caused by problems like:
Brainstem Damage
There are a number of incidents, complications, or other causes leading to a brainstem issue, including:
- Stroke
- Infection
- Neck injury
Adverse Effects of Taking Narcotics
For some, narcotic painkillers can affect the communication channels between the brain and the breathing muscles, leading to central sleep apnea.
Sleeping at High Altitudes
Living at higher altitudes has been linked to the development of central sleep apnea in some patients. There is less oxygen available 2,000-5,000 feet above sea level. As a result, the brain and body may not receive enough oxygen to maintain proper bodily function. Delicate channels like the ones connecting the brain to muscles in the body may experience damage of some level, leading to issues including CSA.
Why Is Sleep Apnea So Dangerous?
Whether you have OSA or CSA (or a combination of both), it can lead to dangerous effects, including:
Heart Disease
Patients with sleep apnea often develop heart-related issues like high blood pressure and irregular heartbeats as a result of the frequent loss of oxygen. In some cases, patients who develop heart failure or those who experience a heart attack can trace their condition back to untreated or poorly managed sleep apnea.
Diabetes
Sleep apnea not only disrupts sleep and leads to a loss of oxygen, but it also hinders the body’s ability to metabolize glucose and can lead to insulin resistance, which can eventually lead to the development of type 2 diabetes.
Stroke
Did you know that the risk of stroke increases significantly for sleep apnea patients? The toll sleep apnea takes on the body tends to cause issues with the blood and blood vessels. From weakening the vessel walls to reducing the amount of blood and oxygen that reaches the brain, patients with untreated sleep apnea are more likely to experience a stroke than those with treated sleep apnea or those who do not suffer from the condition.
Daytime Accidents
Patients with sleep apnea do not get good sleep, and it’s not a matter of one bad night’s rest. It’s a matter of lousy sleep for weeks, months, or even years on end. As a result, people with chronically poor sleep are at an increased risk of experiencing major accidents during the day.
What Are the Symptoms of Obstructive and Central Sleep Apnea?
Obstructive sleep apnea tends to cause symptoms similar to central sleep apnea, which can make it hard to determine which type a patient suffers from.
For the most part, symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea can include:
- Excessive tiredness throughout the day
- Frequent sleep disruptions
- General brain fog
- Insomnia
- Irritability
- Memory issues
- Morning-time headaches
- Night sweats
- Sexual performance issues
- Shortness of breath upon waking up
- Snoring
Central sleep apnea patients may also experience the following day or night:
- Shortness of breath during the day
- Changes to the voice
- Issues with swallowing
- A sense of muscle weakness or numbness
If you or a loved one suffers from sleep apnea, talk to the team at Athens Oral Surgery Center about your treatment options.
Schedule a sleep apnea consultation with our expert team today to talk through your symptoms, discover your options, and begin your treatment plan: 706-549-5033
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