I Wake Up Tired…
How Sleep Apnea Disrupts Your Sleep
Sleep apnea causes s patients to wake repeatedly through the night because their airways become blocked by excess soft tissue at the back of the throat. Those obstructions induce apneic episodes when patients stop breathing briefly.
Your brain will wake you in response to recognizing that you have stopped breathing. In the most severe cases, this can happen as many as 100 times in an hour. Clearly, this phenomenon disrupts your sleep and deprives you of the rest you need. As a result, you will still feel sleepy when you wake up, even if you’ve slept for eight hours or more.
The Effects Of Daytime Drowsiness
Daytime drowsiness isn’t merely an annoyance. It can affect your life in many ways, causing:
- Mood changes
- Attention problems
- Subpar performance at work or school
- Lack of impulse control
Daytime drowsiness can even create safety hazards for you if you must drive while drowsy or operate heavy equipment for your job.
Additional Health Effects Of Sleep Apnea
While the consequences of daytime drowsiness are significant, sleep apnea is actually associated with even more serious health risks.
Sleep apnea appears to be associated with an array of health problems like heart disease, irregular heartbeat, stroke, high blood pressure, and metabolic syndrome, among others.
There also seems to be a relationship between sleep apnea and obesity. Obese people are more likely to have sleep apnea, and sleep apnea can contribute to obesity.
How Treatment Can Help
If you have sleep apnea and want to get your energy levels back to normal and protect your health, we can help. Oral appliance therapy often is highly effective in eliminating the conditions that cause sleep apnea.
An oral appliance worn during sleep can help to hold your tongue or jaw in a forward position, keeping the soft tissues away from the airway opening and preventing obstruction.
These oral appliances are custom – designed for maximum comfort and improved patient adherence.
Oral appliance therapy is a good starting point for sleep apnea treatment, and many patients will get symptom relief from this intervention. If your condition does not improve after oral appliance therapy, we can explore other treatments that may help.
To get more rest at night and have more energy during the day, contact us to schedule a sleep apnea consultation and discover the treatment option that will be most beneficial for you.