Sleep apnea and its treatment
Sleeping apnea is disturbance in a sleep where we can observe sudden stop and start of sleep, there will be a lot of interruptions in sleep, then the question arises how to treat sleep apnea. The one with sleep apnea snores loudly and will feel full stressed even after a complete sleep. The main types of all apnea are obstructive type that occurs due to relaxation of throat muscle.
Due to more weight in adults the common type of apnea is obstructive apnea. That is due to obesity and fat deposition. The obstruction associated with throat, soft palate and tissues around palate. The soft tissue around palate when the throat and tongue are relaxed state, this causes obstruction to air.
Sleeping disturbances due to obstruction of nasal ways
Here are few signs and symptoms of apnea which are more usually present,
- Day time sleepy feeling
- Snores loudly
- There are few episodes where sleep is stopped in between night.
- They awake many times during night.
- They awake with dry and foul smelled mouth
- Early morning headaches occur
- They will be unable to concentrate during day times, always they will be restless.
There is a link between vitamin D and apnea; this is proved in recent studies. Vitamin D deficiency leads to sleep apnea, irregular sleep. There are three types of management of sleep apnea, they are
- Self-treatment
- Supportive treatment
- Surgical approach
In sleep apnea treatment we should also use some devices during night while sleeping, and also losing weight is must and should thing. There is a machine for such cases that is continuous pressure operating machine which helps to sleep tight in night. There are few surgeries done for treatment of apnea, they are
- Tonsillectomy: this is a surgery for removal of tonsils.
- Adenoid removal: adenoid is present on sides of throat, the one which is more affecting and causing apnea. There would be no problem if we remove one adenoid.
- Palatoplasty: this procedure means modification of palate, few people will have high palate and few will have low palate, for them they will modify according to reduce apnea.
- Weight loss
Apnea patients should lose their weight because having obesity leads to increase in requirement of oxygen by lungs and heart thus, load of the body also increases.so weight loss is must and should thing.
- Should quit drinking alcohol and must stop smoking
- We need to take healthy diet
- If you are allergy to something try to quit that food
- Have a nice sleep from time to time.
Continuous Positive Airway Pressure is the treatment option for apnea, it is a supportive care for apnea patients, this machine has a mask that need to be placed by patient during night while sleeping, the mask connected to pipe which pumps air into the nasal way, thus there won’t be any blocks in nasal way. In some children due to tonsils they face problems in sleeping, in same way adults also face, by going to surgery the problems subside and improve the apnea.
