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Get a FREE Report for
More Info on How
Sleep Apnea Can Be
Threatening
the Health
and Even the Life
of You or Your Loved Ones
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What is Sleep Apnea?
Apnea is Greek and literally means without breath.
In plain English, sleep apnea is when you stop breathing for 10 to 30 seconds at a time during sleep. These cessations of breath can happen up to 400 times a night causing you to wake up gasping for air and destroying your quality of sleep, whether you remember or not.
There are three kinds of sleep apnea: obstructive, central and mixed.
Obstructive Sleep Apnea, or OSA, is the most common kind and is caused by airway blockage. This blockage occurs when the soft tissue in the throat collapses and closes due to relaxed tongue and soft pallet, tonsils or uvula (that little piece of flesh that hangs in the back of your throat), relaxed throat muscles, abnormal jaw structure or large amounts of fatty tissue in the throat.
Central Sleep Apnea, or CSA, is rare and is related to central nervous system function. With CSA the airway isn’t blocked, instead, either the muscles to breath don’t get the message from the brain, or the brain doesn’t send the message to the muscles.
As implied by the name, Mixed Apnea is a combination of both OSA and CSA.
With each apnea event, sleep is fragmented by the body’s attempt to resume breathing. The stress on the body from this cycle leads not only to exhaustion and fatigue, but to serious health risks if left untreated.
If you think you may have sleep apnea, please contact your doctor so that you can go to a sleep lab for testing. If you are diagnosed with sleep apnea, make sure you have proper set-up done by a professional Respiratory Therapist, and that you have a good follow-up service to help you maintain your mask properly, such as SleepAlly.com.
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