YOUR HEALTH - MEDICINE 101

Sleep Apnea
Mark Twain once wrote “Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone”

And there are a lot of people sleeping by themselves. Snoring is common at any but by age 60 a full 60% of men and almost 40% of women snore. And it's rated as a serious problem in almost 30 percent of marriages.

And it's just a little vibration causing all that trouble. When we sleep the circular muscles at the back of the throat and upper part of the airway relax. That makes the size of the airway smaller, with a short diameter, and the tissues also have less tone so that when air moves back and forth some of the tissues vibrate. If you open your mouth and look in a mirror you will see at the back of the roof your mouth a fold of tissue hanging down the midline. It’s called the uvula. The uvula directs food away from the back of the nose and down into the esophagus. But it's also part of the tissue that vibrates during sleep. And all that vibration adds up to snoring.

But there is a particular type of snoring which is not just irritating and cause for divorce but could be dangerous. That type is called sleep apnea. Apnea is a latin word meaning no breathing – here’s what it sounds like ---

Sleep apnea begins with a regular pattern of snoring like this --- simply the vibrations of the loose tissue at the back of the throat as the airway collapses. In order to make a noise there must be some air movement but in sleep apnea the obstruction goes from partial to complete. No air moves.
There is actually a pause in the sound of snoring: the airway has closed completely. This means that no air (and no oxygen) is getting into the body. Soon the blood level of oxygen falls and sensors in the brain recognize this and spring into action. The brain says "Hey wait a minute, there’s not enough oxygen getting in here. Wake up and get a breath!” The sleeper rises from the light sleep that they are in to an awakening and takes a loud breath.

This pattern is repeated again and again– sometimes as often as 200 times an hour. These poor people have a choice – they can either sleep or they can breath – but they can’t do both at the same time.

Sleep apnea is a medical problem because it’s one of the well known causes of high blood pressure. Also during the apnea, when the oxygen level falls, irregular heartbeats can be quite common.

There are several treatments for sleep apnea. One of the most effective is a machine like this. It's called a CPAP machine (continuous positive airway pressure). It pumps pressurized air through this tubing into the mask. The sleeper wears this mask over the nose and the pressure stops the airway from collapsing.

I know it sounds horrendous and it looks awkward – but many people with sleep apnea are so chronically tired that they can’t function, they can’t think straight – and this machine offers them a solution by providing adequate sleep. Besides wouldn’t you do almost anything if you were guaranteed by your doctor that it would make you better in bed?