Sleep Apnea

Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea

If you snore regularly every night and feel sleepy and tired during the day, you may have “sleep apnea”. Although sleep apnea is a disease that is as common as asthma and diabetes in the society, it remained hidden because it was not diagnosed. Since doctors are inexperienced in this regard, they cannot direct their patients. Unfortunately, sleep apnea is not well known among doctors as it has been defined and developed in the last 20 years.
What is Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea syndrome is a disease that manifests itself with obstruction that develops as a result of the inability to keep the airways open during sleep. In patients with sleep apnea syndrome, the relaxation in the respiratory muscles becomes more pronounced during sleep than in healthy people, and the airways cannot be kept open enough. As a result of this; breathing becomes difficult, oxygen uptake to the tissues is insufficient as a result of the decrease in the oxygen level in the blood, oxygen deficiency causes the patient to wake up, and this level returns to normal only after the patient wakes up. Fluctuations in blood oxygen levels are characteristic of the disease. This condition is called obstructive sleep apnea syndrome in medicine.

At the end of this process, which occurs in sleep apnea, some harmful substances are released in the body, causing damage to the vascular wall and may play a role in the formation of many diseases (hypertension, heart attack, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, obesity).

What Are the Symptoms of Sleep Apnea?

Most patients with sleep apnea syndrome snore heavily at night. Even if the patients themselves do not realize it, it is stated by their spouses that they have difficulty in breathing, stopping their breathing from time to time, and then breathing again with severe snoring. These respiratory events repeat many times during the night, but patients are not aware of this situation. These difficulties in breathing cause the patients to have sweating in their neck, head and nape and often get up at night to go to the toilet. Frequency of going to the toilet at night is one of the helpful factors in determining the severity of the disease.

After a bad and poor quality night's sleep, patients wake up from an unrestful sleep in the morning and usually have headaches and reflux complaints. The work performance of patients whose concentrations decrease and whose attention is impaired seriously decreases. During the day, they start to fall asleep while sitting, after a meal, at a meeting, while reading the newspaper. During various activities of people with severe sleep apnea problem; For example, they may fall asleep while waiting in a car at a traffic light, while behind the wheel, or while operating a machine.

Sleep apnea syndrome predisposes to hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia and obesity, and sleep apnea syndrome, which is an independent risk factor for diseases such as heart attack and stroke, must be treated.

What Are the Risk Factors of Sleep Apnea?

The most important risk factor is obesity. The risk of sleep apnea syndrome increases with the increase in body mass index and neck circumference. Disorders in the structure of the nose, throat and jaw, some endocrine disorders (hypothyroidism, acromegaly) and genetic predisposition are among other risk factors.

Recent studies have shown that snoring and sleep apnea are associated with many important diseases. If left untreated, sleep apnea can lead to the following problems:
irregular heartbeats
heart enlargement
increased risk of heart attack
Hypertension
Stroke
Extreme tiredness and daytime sleepiness
Traffic accidents (sleeping at the wheel)
Decreased sexual desires (impotence)
uncontrollable obesity
Sweating during sleep, frequent urination
Extreme irritability, depression, loss of vitality
sleep death
How is Sleep Apnea Diagnosed?

The history of the patient evaluated by the physician is taken, airway evaluation is performed and metabolic risk factors are determined. In the sleep laboratory, the patient is hospitalized for one night and examined.

Daytime drowsiness, restless sleep, insomnia, and extreme tiredness
The patient wakes up with a feeling of suffocation with shortness of breath (or these findings are told by his partner)
The sleep apnea test is the most important step in the detection and treatment of the disease. The sleep apnea test called "polysomnography" is a test in which brain activity and respiratory events are recorded during the night. As a result of the sleep test, the diagnosis of the disease is made when the respiratory disorder scores at night are at a pathological level.
Patients with calculated abnormal respiratory events above the acceptable value are diagnosed with "Sleep Apnea Syndrome".

For detailed information about the sleep test, “What are the Sleep Tests?” can be found on the page.
Is There a Treatment for Sleep Apnea? How Is It Treated?

Sleep apnea is treated definitively and effectively. The most widely used sleep apnea treatment in the world is “Continuous Positive Nasal Pressure (CPAP)” treatment. This sleep apnea device creates very sensitive positive pressure reflected through the nose with a small device placed on the bedside during sleep. The patient wears a CPAP mask while lying down, and the positive pressure from the sleep apnea device ensures that the airways and larynx are constantly open during sleep, as if an airbag has been placed, and eliminates apnea and snoring. The CPAP mask or sleep apnea mask as it is popularly known should be personalized, and the most suitable model should be selected for effective treatment.

In this treatment, no drugs are used and no surgical procedure is performed. The effects of improvement are seen immediately after treatment, the next day. Snoring stops, sleepiness improves, you feel vigorous and reborn.

Although the patient's complaints are sometimes relieved by weight loss, it is often not a definitive solution. As a result of the disorders in the metabolism of the patients, it becomes difficult to lose weight and maintain the lost weight. Although the operations to open the airway can eliminate the respiratory irregularity to some extent, it may not always be beneficial.

Surgical treatment is recommended only in a small group of patients. Especially patients with face-jaw disorder and abnormal throat structure should be carefully selected. Because the disease may recur after a while after the operation. The disappearance of snoring after surgical interventions may not mean that the disease has passed.

The treatment of positive pressure air supply to the respiratory tract is among the most effective and recommended treatment methods of sleep apnea syndrome today. This treatment is to provide the airway opening that the patient cannot provide during sleep, by putting a mask on the nose, by giving air at a certain pressure. In order to find the appropriate pressure in the patient deemed necessary, pressure adjustment night is hospitalized. The patient, whose pressure is adjusted and his breathing disorder improves, sleeps restfully. Many people are biased about using masks while sleeping. However, after using it even for one night, it becomes an indispensable device.

With the elimination of breathing disorders in sleep, first night sleep improves. Night sweats of the patients and getting up to the toilet are eliminated. He wakes up in the morning with his sleep and rested. Daytime sleepiness, attention disorder, forgetfulness and depressive complaints disappear. By making it easier for patients to lose weight, success in blood pressure, sugar and hyperlipidemia treatments increases. More importantly, the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke decreases. The work performance of the patient who does not sleep during the day increases, and the risk of traffic accidents due to sudden sleep attacks that may develop during driving is lost. In the words of the patients, they feel “as if they were born again”.

If you have several of the symptoms described above, we recommend that you consult a physician who specializes in sleep disorders.
Sleep Apnea Evaluation Questionnaire

Do they say you snore?
Do you notice that you snore?
Do they say you stop breathing when you snore?
Do you wake up from your sleep with hunger?
Do you sweat at night?
Is your sweating especially on your neck, head and chest?
Do you get up to the toilet at night?
How many times do you get up to go to the toilet at night? 1-2 times 2-3 times 3-4 times more than 4 times
Do you wake up at night with a burning sensation in your stomach?
Do you wake up tired in the morning?
Do you have a feeling of heaviness in your head in the morning?
Do you have a headache in the morning?
Do you have dry mouth in the morning?
Are you tired during the day?
Do you feel sleepy when you are empty during the day?
Do you have naps at noon?
Do you fall asleep in front of the TV at night?
Do you fall asleep during the trip?
Do you fall asleep at work?
Have you fallen asleep talking to someone?
Do you feel sleepy while driving?
Have you encountered unpleasant events due to sleepiness?
Do you complain of forgetfulness?
Do you feel a decrease in attention?
Do you get angry easily?