Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that causes pause in breathing whiles you asleep. These breathing pauses may be for a few seconds or may last up to a minute. It’s not fixed in someone whether he may get 10 or 20 pauses during his sleep due to his sleep apnea. Normally they are 5 to 30 an hour. After the pause, normal berating continues, sometimes with chocking or loud snoring sound. It is a chronic disease that disrupts sleep. Sleep apnea leads to poor sleep quality that makes you tired and sleepy whole day. There are several tests that are used to confirm its diagnosis.
Three Most Common Types Of Sleep Apnea
Obstructive sleep apnea is the most common type in which the airway gets blocked during sleep and causes berating pauses. But sleep apnea can be of few more types.
- Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) – its occurs when muscles get proper signals form the brain to take a breath but their efforts goes in vain as the airway is obstructed and have prevented enough flow of the air.
- Central sleep apnea (CSA) – in this, muscles do not get signesl from the brain and thus they don’t put any efforts in berating.
- Mixed sleep apnea – it is a type in which both of the symptoms, the central sleep apnea and obstructive sleep apnea, are possible.
Obesity – A Major Common Factor Of Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea is a disorder which remains unknown to its most of the sufferers, in various cases; sleep apnea is diagnosed while its very obvious symptoms daytime fatigue and loud snoring sound are witnessed in a person. Sleep apnea is not restricted to a certain age group it may occur to people of all ages. However, it is most prevalent in the elderly and middle-aged people. There must be a very close connection between sleep apnea and obesity as it has been found as a most common factor among all sufferer.
Mirtazapine – An Antidepressant Also Effective In Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea treatment is necessary to avoid many health problems. Science and medicines is full of devices and products to answer the problem of sleep apnea, including the products to prevent continuous positive airway pressure. In addition to that various other therapeutics and devices are under research. Mirtazapine, which is a tetracyclic antidepressant used largely to treat depression is now also recommended condense or eliminate the occurrence of apnea episodes. A small clinical study done on Mirtazapine found that its use in the patients of sleep apnea has been able to reduce the occurrence up to 50%. However, it is less in practice as its use increases the risk of weight gain and sedation and in larger clinical researches Mirazapine failed to reproduce same positive effects seen in the previous one.
Treatment Options That Might Be Pursued
Sleep apnea should not be under treated. It is a chronic condition which requires long-term management. Untreated sleep apnea can lead to the risk of diabetes, obesity, heart attack or even heart failure. Fatigue and daytime sleepiness associated with sleep apnea also increase the chances of driving accidents. sleep apnea treatment is not only possible through a surgery, or regular medication, a few lifestyle changes, efforts on weight loss, mouthpieces and breathing devices are other easy options come in heady for sleep apnea which can be pursued to successfully treat this chronic sleep disorder.
