Issue 21.15
Obstructive sleep apnea is greatly under diagnosed. In our increasingly more obese society, it is becoming more prevalent but often not recognized. If you awake in the morning feeling fatigued and unrefreshed, if you fall asleep while sitting in a quiet place, while watching TV or reading a book, if you snore, you may have obstructive sleep apnea.
When someone has obstructive sleep apnea, their brain does not get to cycle through the normal sleep patterns and often does not get enough deep, restorative sleep. Due to the disruption of the sleep cycle, it would be like having someone stand at your bedside, poking you in the ribs every few minutes and expecting that you would get good, restorative sleep. After doing this recurrently, one walks around chronically sleep deprived.
Sleep apnea is very easy to screen for. Besides a simple questionnaire, one can have a night time study at your home that can be done in your own bed. You just have to have a device that records your oxygen levels while you are sleeping called pulse oximetry. If you have frequent drops in your oxygen level, especially if it is happening frequently, you are at high risk and should have a full nighttime study done in a sleep lab.
Besides being chronically fatigued, sleep apnea can lead to a number of other health conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure, and elevated blood pressure in your lung system just to name a few. To prevent these disorders, you might want to see a family physician like Karen Radley, MD to get your screening evaluation done today.