Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Identifying the Symptoms Key to Right Treatment

It is a common situation with most of us. At times we may not be even aware of the disease condition that we have been diagnosed with. Obstructive sleep apnea could be one such condition, where you could have heard the name somewhere, but really do not know much about what the ailment is all about or how serious the condition is.

One of the first things you should know about obstructive sleep apnea is that it is one of the more common types of sleep apnea – a distressing sleep disorder where the patient stops breathing several times in the night. Such pauses in breathing could happen multiple times in an hour and such episodes repeated 20 to 30 times in a single night.

It could so happen that the victim may not even be aware of such pauses in his or her breathing; but it is the bed-partner who gets alarmed at such repeated breathlessness.

Essentially the primary trigger for obstructive sleep apnea is when snoring is left untreated for a prolonged period of time. This is the outcome of some kind of obstacle in the upper respiratory tract of the suffering individual – caused by various factors including additional tissues in the air passage; enlarged nasal turbinates, tonsils or tongue, deviated septum; misalignment of jaws, etc,.

Obstructive sleep apnea: identifying symptoms

Perhaps one of the most redeeming features about this condition is that there are enough symptoms of sleep apnea that can provide prior warning to the victim and his or her family of things to come. Such sleep apnea symptoms should always be taken seriously, before the condition worsens.

Some of the typical sleep apnea symptoms include:
• Daytime fatigue and sleepiness
• Rapid weight gain
• Irritable mood
• Elevated blood pressure
• Depression
• Concentration problems
• Frequent night-time urination
• Feeling of disorientation when awake

Though it is important that you take the symptoms seriously, you might want to get a medical confirmation regarding your condition. To know whether or not you are suffering from obstructive sleep apnea, you would have to take a sleep apnea test, medically known as polysomnography. While such a sleep apnea test is always done when recommended by a doctor, you should know that it can be done both at home and at the sleep clinic, depending on the seriousness of your condition and the kind of information your doctor is seeking from the test results.

The primary aim of a sleep apnea test is to observe your brain and muscle activities while you are asleep and compare them against some apnea markers. Eye movement, brain waves, muscular tension are some of the parameters of a typical test for obstructive sleep apnea.

Obstructive sleep apnea: the final step

Once the symptoms have been identified and you have the sleep apnea test results with you, your doctor can then decide on the therapy regimen that is most suitable for your specific condition. Duration of the condition, the location of the obstruction and your overall health condition are all taken into consideration when deciding on the treatment for obstruction sleep apnea.