What Does It Mean When You Stop Breathing in Your Sleep and Then Start Breathing Again

Overview

Normal airway and obstructed airway due to sleep apnea — Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when the tongue and soft palate block the airway while you're sleeping.

What is slumber apnea?

Sleep apnea is a serious sleep disorder that happens when a person'due south animate is interrupted during sleep. People with untreated slumber apnea stop breathing repeatedly during their slumber, sometimes hundreds of times during the night.

If it'southward not treated, sleep apnea can cause a number of health problems, including hypertension (high blood pressure level), stroke, cardiomyopathy (enlargement of the muscle tissue of the center), heart failure, diabetes and heart attacks. Untreated sleep apnea can also exist responsible for job impairment, work-related accidents and motor vehicle crashes, every bit well as underachievement in school in children and adolescents.

There are ii types of sleep apnea, obstructive and central:

Obstructive slumber apnea is the more than common of the two. Obstructive sleep apnea occurs as repetitive episodes of consummate or fractional upper airway blockage during sleep. During an apneic episode, the diaphragm and chest muscles work harder every bit the pressure level increases to open the airway. Breathing ordinarily resumes with a loud gasp or trunk jerk. These episodes can interfere with sound sleep, reduce the period of oxygen to vital organs, and crusade centre rhythm irregularities.
In primal slumber apnea, the airway is non blocked merely the brain fails to bespeak the muscles to exhale due to instability in the respiratory control center. Central apnea is related to the part of the central nervous system.

Who gets sleep apnea?

Slumber apnea occurs in about 25% of men and nearly x% of women. Sleep apnea can affect people of all ages, including babies and children and particularly people over the age of fifty and those who are overweight.

Certain physical traits and clinical features are common in patients with obstructive sleep apnea. These include excessive weight, large neck and structural abnormalities reducing the diameter of the upper airway, such as nasal obstruction, a low-hanging soft palate, enlarged tonsils or a pocket-size jaw with an overbite.

What happens when you lot end breathing?

When y'all finish breathing, your centre rate also tends to driblet the longer your body is deprived of oxygen. Then, your involuntary reflexes cause you to startle awake at the stop of that period of non breathing. When this occurs, your center rate tends to accelerate speedily and your blood pressure rises.

These are changes that accept place acutely when you lot stop animate. Even so, your body starts to experience chronic effects if y'all experience frequent apnea. Data suggests increased risk, particularly when you end breathing roughly xxx times or more per hour. Merely there is likely a risk at even lower frequency rates.

For example, your blood pressure tends to go up, your middle walls thicken due to increased workload and the structure of your heart changes. It tends to become stiffer and less flexible considering there are more than fibrous cells growing in between the musculus cells.

All of those things increase the risk that you can have either atrial or ventricular arrhythmias. They as well tend to reduce the function of the heart then that it's less efficient at pumping claret.

Symptoms and Causes

What causes sleep apnea?

Obstructive slumber apnea is acquired past a blockage of the airway, usually when the soft tissue in the rear of the throat collapses during sleep. Central sleep apnea is usually observed in patients with fundamental nervous arrangement dysfunction, such every bit following a stroke or in patients with neuromuscular diseases similar amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, Lou Gehrig's affliction). It is likewise mutual in patients with heart failure and other forms of heart, kidney or lung disease.

What are the symptoms of sleep apnea?

Oft the first signs of OSA are recognized non past the patient, but by the bed partner. Many of those affected have no sleep complaints. The most common signs and symptoms of OSA include:

Snoring.
Daytime sleepiness or fatigue.
Restlessness during sleep, frequent nighttime awakenings.
Sudden awakenings with a awareness of gasping or choking.
Dry mouth or sore throat upon awakening.
Cognitive harm, such as trouble concentrating, forgetfulness or irritability.
Mood disturbances (depression or anxiety).
Dark sweats.
Frequent night urination.
Sexual dysfunction.
Headaches.

People with central sleep apnea more often report recurrent awakenings or insomnia, although they may also feel a choking or gasping awareness upon awakening.

Symptoms in children may not be as obvious and include:

Poor school performance.
Sluggishness or sleepiness, oftentimes misinterpreted equally laziness in the classroom.
Daytime mouth breathing and swallowing difficulty.
Inward motility of the ribcage when inhaling.
Unusual sleeping positions, such equally sleeping on the hands and knees, or with the neck hyper-extended.
Excessive sweating at night.
Learning and behavioral disorders (hyperactivity, attending deficits).
Bedwetting.

Diagnosis and Tests

How is sleep apnea diagnosed?

If your doctor determines that you take symptoms suggestive of sleep apnea, you may be asked to have a slumber evaluation with a sleep specialist or may order an overnight sleep study to objectively evaluate for sleep apnea.

Testing includes an overnight slumber study chosen a polysomnogram (PSG). A PSG is performed in a sleep laboratory nether the direct supervision of a trained technologist. During the exam, a diverseness of body functions, such as the electrical activity of the brain, eye movements, muscle activity, center rate, breathing patterns, air menstruation, and claret oxygen levels are recorded at nighttime during sleep. Subsequently the report is completed, the number of times animate is dumb during sleep is tallied and the severity of the sleep apnea is graded.
For adults, a Home Slumber Exam (HST) can sometimes be performed instead. This is a modified type of sleep study that can be washed in the comfort of home. It records fewer trunk functions than PSG, including airflow, animate attempt, blood oxygen levels and snoring to confirm a diagnosis of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea.

An HST is not appropriate to exist used every bit a screening tool for patients without symptoms. It'due south not used for patients with significant medical problems (such every bit heart failure, moderate to severe cardiac disease, neuromuscular disease or moderate to severe pulmonary disease). Information technology's also non used for patients who accept other sleep disorders (such as central sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, indisposition, cyclic rhythm disorders, parasomnias or narcolepsy) in improver to the suspected obstructive sleep apnea.

Direction and Treatment

Understand Pap Therapy for Your Slumber Apnea

What are the treatments for slumber apnea?

Conservative treatments: In mild cases of obstructive slumber apnea, bourgeois therapy may be all that is needed.

Overweight persons can benefit from losing weight. Even a 10% weight loss can reduce the number of apneic events for most patients. Nonetheless, losing weight can be hard to practice with untreated obstructive sleep apnea due to increased appetite and metabolism changes that can happen with obstructive sleep apnea.
Individuals with obstructive sleep apnea should avert the utilise of alcohol and certain sleeping pills, which brand the airway more than probable to plummet during sleep and prolong the apneic periods.
In some patients with balmy obstructive slumber apnea, breathing pauses occur but when they sleep on their backs. In such cases, using a wedge pillow or other devices that assistance them slumber in a side position may aid.
People with sinus issues or nasal congestion should employ nasal sprays or animate strips to reduce snoring and ameliorate airflow for more comfortable nighttime animate. Avoiding sleep impecuniousness is important for all patients with sleep disorders.

Mechanical therapy: Positive Airway Pressure (PAP) therapy is the preferred initial handling for almost people with obstructive sleep apnea. With PAP therapy, patients wear a mask over their nose and/or oral cavity. An air blower gently forces air through the olfactory organ and/or mouth. The air pressure is adjusted and so that it is just plenty to prevent the upper airway tissues from collapsing during sleep. PAP therapy prevents airway closure while in apply, but apnea episodes return when PAP is stopped or if it is used improperly. There are several styles, and types of positive airway pressure devices depending on specific needs of patients. Styles and types include:

CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) is the almost widely used of the PAP devices. The motorcar is fix at one single force per unit area.
Bi-Level PAP uses one pressure level during inhalation (breathing in), and a lower pressure during exhalation (breathing out). At that place is a criterion that must exist met earlier health insurance will cover the bi-level. This unremarkably means that the CPAP motorcar must be tried first with no success and these results documented before insurance will pay for a bi-level.
Auto CPAP or Auto Bi-Level PAP uses a range of pressures that self-regulates during utilize depending on pressure requirements detected by the machine.
Adaptive Servo-Ventilation (ASV) is a blazon of non-invasive ventilation that is used for patients with central sleep apnea, which acts to continue the airway open up and delivers a mandatory breath when needed.

Mandibular advancement devices: These are devices for patients with mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea. Dental appliances or oral mandibular advancement devices that help to forbid the tongue from blocking the pharynx and/or advance the lower jaw frontward can be made. These devices aid keep the airway open during slumber. A sleep specialist and dentist (with expertise in oral appliances for this purpose) should jointly determine if this treatment is best for you.

Hypoglossal nerve stimulator: A stimulator is implanted under the skin on the right side of the chest with electrodes tunneled under the skin to the hypoglossal nerve in the neck and to intercostal muscles (between two ribs) in the chest. The device is turned on at bedtime with a remote control. With each breath, the hypoglossal nervus is stimulated, the natural language moves forward out of the airway and the airway is opened.

Surgery: Surgical procedures may help people with obstructive sleep apnea and others who snore but don't have sleep apnea. Amongst the many types of surgeries done are outpatient procedures. Surgery is for people who have excessive or malformed tissue obstructing airflow through the nose or throat, such as a deviated nasal septum, markedly enlarged tonsils or small-scale lower jaw with an overbite that causes the pharynx to be abnormally narrow. These procedures are typically performed subsequently sleep apnea has failed to respond to bourgeois measures and a trial of CPAP. Types of surgery include:

Somnoplasty is a minimally invasive procedure that uses radiofrequency energy to reduce the soft tissue in the upper airway.
Tonsillectomy is a procedure that removes the tonsillar tissue in the back of the throat which is a common crusade of obstruction in children with sleep apnea.
Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) is a procedure that removes soft tissue on the dorsum of the pharynx and palate, increasing the width of the airway at the throat opening.
Mandibular/maxillary advancement surgery is a surgical correction of certain facial abnormalities or throat obstructions that contribute to obstructive sleep apnea. This is an invasive procedure that is reserved for patients with severe obstructive slumber apnea with head-confront abnormalities.
Nasal surgery includes correction of nasal obstructions, such every bit a deviated septum.

Living With

What are the effects of slumber apnea?

If left untreated, sleep apnea can result in a number of health problems including hypertension, stroke, arrhythmias, cardiomyopathy (enlargement of the musculus tissue of the eye), heart failure, diabetes, obesity and centre attacks.

Information technology'due south probable that sleep apnea can cause arrhythmias and heart failure considering if y'all have sleep apnea, yous tend to take higher blood pressure. In fact, sleep apnea occurs in virtually 50% of people with eye failure or atrial fibrillation.

This is because sleep apnea can cause:

Repeated episodes of oxygen lowering (what doctors call hypoxia).
Changes in carbon dioxide levels.
Direct effects on the heart due to force per unit area changes inside the chest.
Increased levels of markers of inflammation.

With the high prevalence of slumber apnea in cardiac arrhythmias and middle failure (essentially a coin flip as to whether the patient has it), experts recommend that you don't filibuster in seeking the advice of your physician.

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Source: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/8718-sleep-apnea