All About Obstructive Sleep Apnea - Part 1

Let’s go back a bit and talk about why we’re all here – Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Whether this is a disorder that you or one of your friends a family are dealing with, there is much to know. The good news is that more and more research is being done in the field and more and more people are speaking out about their diagnosis. According to a recent study by Resmed, they are predicting millions more have sleep apnea than have been previously accounted for. The truly scary part is that many remain unaware and undiagnosed. Sleep apnea can affect anyone, and although risks are higher for certain demographics, anyone that displays the symptoms below should talk to their doctor about sleep.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea, or OSA or short, is a nighttime breathing disorder. Many things can cause it, included weight, internal anatomy, and a person’s physiology among others. In everyone it means the same thing – that an airway blockage occurs in your sleep that lasts longer than 10 seconds. This occurs under normal circumstance due to the relaxation in your airway while you are asleep. This becomes a problem when it happens more often, or your oxygen level drops low.

It is normal to have an obstruction up to 5 times an hour. Mild OSA is classified as between 5 and 15 times an hour, moderate OSA is between 15 and 30 times an hour and severe OSA is anything over that. Researchers are realizing more and more that it is not as simple as this, and that a larger picture needs to be considered when classifying a patient.

When you do stop breathing in your sleep your body notices and send a jolt of hormones and chemicals to wake you up, just enough to breathe again. The scary part about this is most people don’t know this is happening when they sleep, they are just exhausted day after day.

Stay tuned next week for All About Obstructive Sleep Apnea Part 2!