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() Sorry I was out of town when this post first came about, but I ran across it today while looking at old posts. I felt it quite important to address the issue. Thank you Mark for bring it up.
For those that are unaware, Sleep Disorders Medicine is my business. I own Sleep Network, Inc., which owns operates accredited Sleep Disorders Centers across the country. Our business is strictly the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders.
Mark, you are correct on many parts of this, but a little off on some descriptions.
What essentially is happening with Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), is that once the person falls asleep the airway collapses due a combination of obstruction by the elongated back part of the Uvula (little hanging grape in the back of your throat is the front of it) , which has the function of flipping around and cleaning things off. When you fall asleep, the airway muscles relax, and the Uvula drops causing the obstruction.
Once there is a partial obstruction of the upper airway, negative pressure then kicks as the person inhales and the airway is pulled closed or partially closed. A good analogy of this would be if you took a drinking straw and inhaled strongly you can fill your lungs with air. However, if you take your finger and cover most of the hole and try the same thing, the sides of the straw will collapse in sealing the straw. The end result is that you can watch the person's chest moving up and down as they attempt to bring air in (which they are not).
With the lack of air coming into the lungs, the Oxyhemoglobin saturations (amount of oxygen molecules bound to the blood Hemoglobin) dramatically drop, resulting in Hypoxemia (critically low oxygen levels). At this point, with the reduced oxygen in the blood, the heart significantly slows down. Many of you are familiar with the medical term for this: Bradycardia. The continued hypoxemia over time cause right heart enlargement and in time becomes heart failure. A whole host of other less harmful issues also can occur, such as; night sweats, morning headaches (from the brain being starved of oxygen), sexual dysfunction, lack of energy, comprimized memory function, mood disorders, and a whole host of other issues.
As Mark explained, fortunately the brain takes over. The brain realizes that the body is starved for oxygen and is dying, and wakes the brain up. Once the brain is awake, or even partially awake, the person quickly deeply inhales, and since the brain is awake or even partially awake, the muscle tone is back and airway is unobstructed allowing air to fill the lungs again. At this point the brain realized there is now air in the lungs, and the heart starts pumping wildly to try to circulated the newly oxygenated blood throughout the body. This rapid heart rate is called Tachycardia. So, you have a heart that continually slows way down, then rapidly speeds up. Over and over and over again.
The cycle is repeated over and over again, often times upward to 1,000 times per night. essentially the person can only successfully breath while the brain is awake.
Apnea is defined as merely the cessation (stopping) of breathing for 10 seconds or more.
Some people may only have apnea when they sleep on their backs, and not on their sides (positional apnea). Some only have the symptoms of snoring, or lack of energy. That is why it is so important to ask your bed partner what you do while you are asleep.
Treatment can vary from wearing a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) or BIPAP (Bi Level Positive Pressure) mask when you sleep, to surgery. Surgery options vary as well. You can have a simple nose reaming to a UPPP (Uvulopalatopharyngealplasty). It all depends on how severe the apnea is and where the obstruction is.
Weight loss is also quite important. We have had many a bariatric surgeon standardly require a Polysomnogram (sleep study)prior to performing gastroplasty or other stomach size reduction procedures such as the rings.
Bottom line is that left untreated Obstructive Sleep apnea will kill you. If you have been diagnosed with apnea, and don;t wear your CPAP or BiPAP masks to sleep, you are no less then a fool. If you have symptoms or have suspicions that you might have apnea, get your butts into an accredited Sleep Disorders Center right away to find out.
BTW- I won't mention any names, but here on the chipboard, we probably have around 50 chippers that have been diagnosed with Sleep Apnea. I'm sure there are many, many more that I'm not aware of. These are just the people that have either come to one of my sleep disorders centers, or have come to me for advice.
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