 Symptoms of Apnea include
snoring, holding your breath while sleeping, waking up gasping for
air, headaches in the morning, excessive grogginess, desire to
sleep during the day, and dreams that follow you throughout the
day. These problems, left untreated, can be
dangerous. Many times, a person with apnea will fall asleep at
work, or worse, while driving! There also pulmonary problems that
can result over a long term.
By
definition, Sleep Apnea is
the cessation of breathing for a short period of time while
sleeping. In most cases, this is due to a mechanical blockage of
the airway, such as the weight of a fatty neck closing down the
trachea. These episodes are believed to
occur in the Thalamus area of the brain. Also, Central Sleep Apnea
may involve primary brainstem medullary depression resulting from
a tumor of the posterior fossa, poliomyelitis, or idiopathic
central hypoventilation.
There are three types of
sleep apnea: obstructive, central and mixed. Obstructive is
mentioned above. With Central Sleep Apnea, the person stops
breathing not because of a mechanical blockage, but because of
neurological dysfunction. During an episode, a person may just not
take a breath for an unusually long time, then suddenly inhale
rapidly; also, the person may inhale at regular intervals, but
exhaling becomes troublesome, again, due to some neurological
failure, such as muscles relaxing at that moment, when they should
be open (not to be confused with an OSA episode, where muscles
relax before inhalation). Mixed, the rarest form of Apnea, is a
combination of Obstructive and Central.
If
you live in southern
California you can contact Patricia Fair at the Huntington Memorial
Hospital Sleep
Center in Pasadena. (626) 397-3061. Tell her you
were
referred
by
the
welcome
Home
Day
Foundation.
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