The Two Main Symptoms of Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea is an insidious sleep disorder that makes you stop breathing while asleep. It exists in two main forms, both of which symptoms of sleep apnea are similar: obstructive sleep apnea, caused by a physical obstruction like enlarged tonsils or your tongue, and central sleep apnea, caused by a neurological dysfunction.
Symptoms of sleep apnea are insidious because nearly 90% of those with it have no idea they have it, even though they get up many times every night choking, because they do not remember these awakenings. But there is always the prospect that when they stop breathing during their sleep, they could simply not start again.
The sufferer typically doesn’t notice his cessation of breathing during sleep, the majority only ever know they might have a disorder when their bed partner informs them of either or both major common symptoms of sleep apnea: loud snoring, and the opposite, periodic silence through the insufficient breathing.
While the two main symptoms of sleep apnea are loud snoring or periods without sound in the least, there are other symptoms, just like gasping or choking, waking up suddenly and violently, and daytime sleepiness even after sleeping all night. Once they know of these symptoms, the folks who want to get verified will undergo a one night stay on a sleep clinic under monitoring.
My father, for example, used to snore so loudly my mother was known to come into my room at night just to get some sleep. A room and a corridor away, we could still hear him faintly. Finally, after decades of nagging, my mother finally got my father to go into a sleep clinic to check if anything might be done. One night at the clinic later, he was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, that’s a lot more common as well as more easily fixed than central sleep apnea. The doctor recommended an operation to remove his tonsils, which were blocking his airway causing both the snoring and the cessation of breath, and I do not think he has snored loudly since.
The key difference between the symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea is that central sleep apnea sufferers tend never to snore. Snoring is caused by the physical obstruction of the airway, which is not the problem in central sleep apnea, but rather a neurological problem causing the signal to breathe to get delayed during sleep.
Whether you suffer from obstructive sleep apnea or the more deadly central sleep apnea, the symptoms of sleep apnea and the net result of either disorder is oxygen deprivation as a result of lack of breathing, and poor quality sleep due to the repeated episodes of awakening to restart breathing, giving you daytime tiredness. (4JV5CX9MTS2U)