Do you think Plants can Cure your Sleep Apnea?

Do you think plants can cure your Sleep Apnea?

Some people use certain herbs that may improve insomnia and sleep apnea disorders. If you want to treat with these herbs, you should consult with their health care provider or medicine practitioner before taking herbal remedies. This is especially important because some remedies such as Melatonin interact with herbals like valerian and prescribed medicines.

Valerian Plant:

Valerian is an herb that is used for its calming and sedating properties. Studies show that it is useful for insomnia and chronic sleep disorders. It may take a few weeks to get the optimal effect. Some studies have found benefits with Valerian when it is combined with hops and/or lemon balm. It is generally well tolerated, and does not cause next-day drowsiness when taken at bedtime.

Melatonin:

Melatonin is a natural hormone that is secreted from the brain’s pineal gland. The gland regulates a person’s biological clock, particularly day and night cycles. Melatonin is generally used as a jet lag remedy. It may also help establish sleep patterns for shift workers.

Kampo Extract:

In 2002, some Japanese Researchers reported on the case of a 44-year-old male who was successfully treated for OSA by taking a Kampo extract, or traditional Japanese herbal formulation.

Vervain:

Vervain is used to relieve anxiety and depression, a remedy for people who are overbearing or overactive mind, and can improve sleep apnea symptoms.

Ayurvedic Medicine:

Ayurvedic remedies for insomnia include scalp and soles massage with sesame, brahmi, or jatamamsi oils, a warm bath, or a nutmeg ghee paste applied to the forehead and around the eyes. Sleep apnea is treated by changing sleep positions, humidifying the air, and nasya (nosedrops) with warm brahmi ghee.

If you are using natural remedies, whether to treat sleep apnea or other conditions, you should always tell your doctor what you're taking, how much, and how often.

This warning is important because some herbal preparations, or other natural remedies for sleep apnea that might be safe for you can interact with prescription medications.

Sleep Apnea Remedies- Weight Loss

There is no doubt that losing weigh improves sleep apnea symptoms. Several studies have shown that a reduction of ten to twenty percent of body weigh results in a 50% decrease in the number of apnea episodes during sleep.

So, your natural cure for sleep apnea would be to lose weight naturally. However, this solution is not at all simple and is far from easy. The heavier you are, the harder it is for you to lose weight through natural ways.

Do you drink alcohol?

Many patients are unaware that drinking alcohol before going to sleep exacerbates sleep respiratory disorders. The reason is that alcohol depresses the respiratory activity. So, for the future, avoid drinking alcohol before bedtime.

Do you take sleeping pills?

Sleeping pills have a similar effect as alcohol, because most of them depress the respiratory function. If you don't know that you have sleep apnea and you use sleeping pills, you are unintentionally aggravating your condition. Under the influence of sleeping pills, the apnea becomes more prolonged and the drop in the level of blood oxygen starts to decrease.

Sleeping on your back worsen your sleep apnea?

A large number of studies have shown that sleeping on the back can increase the symptoms of sleep apnea. Furthermore, some patients experience apnea episodes and snoring only when lying on their backs.

For avoiding sleeping on your back, there is a simple method, sew a pocket into the back of your pajama jacket and put a tennis ball in it. When you turn on your back, the ball will bother you causing you to turn on the side.

Do you like to eat a lot, even in the evening?

Don't eat big meals at night. Try to eat your largest "dinner" meal at lunch and a lighter lunch at the normal dinner hour.

Other advises for patients having sleep apnea:

• Try getting up about the same time every day.

• Establish relaxing rituals before sleep such as a warm bath, light bedtime snack or a couple of minutes of reading.

• Going to bed only when you feel sleepy.

• Are you a comfortable person? Exercise regularly, at least six hours prior to bedtime, and a couple of mild exercises, such as simple stretching or walking, at least four hours prior to bedtime.

• Avoid caffeine within six hours of bedtime and do not smoke before bedtime.

• Try to not use the sleeping pills, and if you have to use them, sleeping pills should never be used for more than three weeks at a time and remember that you should never take sleeping pills after drinking alcohol.

 

Sleep Apnea Remedies-HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT?

How to Lose Weight ?

Loosing weight begins with a change of mentality. You must understand that if you have sleep apnea, it's not enough just to eat less. It's important to know when and what you need to eat.

Your nutrient diet should help you to have a better sleep, so you will start to become increasingly active during the day. From this point is best to start doing exercises. The key is to combine all the natural cures for sleep apnea, to have an effective treatment.

Today, there are millions of different products that claim to help you lose weight quickly and easily. There is no miracle weight-loss cure, however, the only way to lose weight safely and effectively is through diet and exercise. This is what I do every day, and for that you need to have a strong motivation to stay on this track.

I will give you some suggestions to find the best nutrient diet that can help you to loose weight and have a better sleep.

With your nutrient diet you should...

Try doing an efficient colon cleanse. Why? Because cleaning out the colon (to get rid of toxic residue) will help improve your energy level so that you can get more out of your sleep apnea weight loss plan.

Regulating your metabolism. Because the metabolism shows you how well your individual body functions burn the calories.

Improve your digestion cause digestion affects the entire health of the body and metabolism, including detoxification, to support weight loss.

Improving blood sugar. It has an important role in energy production. If the body cannot utilize its sugars than it will not be able to produce energy. Your nutrient diet should support the pancreas to help with insulin production to utilize blood sugar.

 

Stimulate the production of infection-fighting blood cells to improve your immune system. Because a weight loss diet can leave your immune system weakened.

Try improving circulation and regulation of blood pressure.

Detoxifying your blood stream.

Preventing a build up of fat in the liver and the arteries

Having an effective body detoxification. Detoxification improves the efficiency of the colon, which is extremely important for good health. Poor colon health results in the re-absorption of toxins into the human body resulting in low energy and excessive fatigue.

Shoot for a healthy weight as determined by your height. Why? Because being underweight can be just as dangerous as being overweight.

SLEEP APNEA TREATMENT-CPAP Pillow And WEIGHT LOSS

CPAP Pillow for CPAP users:

These pillows are designed to aid CPAP users to make them comfortable while sleeping. So, these pillows are not really alternatives to CPAP treatment, but it helps you in sleeping better with your CPAP mask.

This pillow is specially designed to allow the mask and nose to stay in place, while avoiding pressure points on the face and leaks in the mask while sleeping. Many pillows have soft polyester fill with a special cotton cover (removable for washing).

Benefits of CPAP pillow:

 

• Enhance your sleeping experience
• Provides unsurpassed comfort
• Provides increased freedom of the patient's movement during the night   
• Supports the neck and keeps the spine aligned
• Reduces leaks from the mask
• Decreases pressure of the CPAP mask against the face

Disadvantages of CPAP pillow:

• The pillow can be bulbous and hard
• Discomfort
• It can leave little real pillow to rest a head on
• According to some company's return policy, hygiene law prohibit them accepting returns or giving refunds on pillow

Sleep Apnea Weight Loss:

Sleep apnea weight loss should be recommended to all obese patients with obstructive sleep apnea. Decreasing body weight is a logical target to reduce OSA burden but also to improve a range of health outcomes and quality of life.

As obesity is the most important risk factor for apnea episodes, sleep apnea weight loss would be expected to lead to an increase in upper airway dimensions and an improvement in sleep breathing disorder.

It has been shown that loss of weight can lead to an improved sleep efficiency, decreased snoring and improved oxygenation of the blood.

In cases of dramatic weight loss by extreme dieting or surgery, OSA severity is improved and in some patients abolished.

The benefit of Sleep Apnea Weight Loss is that if your disorder is due to obesity, then weight loss is your lifesaver. 

Dietary weight loss remains challenging; therefore, achieving and maintaining a target body weight is difficult.

I think you know very well that substantial weight loss by non-surgical means is both difficult to achieve and even harder to sustain. Therefore, it is an effective but difficult long-term therapeutic strategy.

The treatment for sleep apnea through weight loss is not for lazy people.  You should be very motivated, not only to start this program, but to continue and make a habit of it.

If you add the fact that you are overweight, have fear for surgery, and you can't sleep with a CPAP machine...then I think you are very motivated to try a sleep apnea weight loss.

TREATING SLEEP APNEA

Treating Sleep Apnea is absolutely possible and there are lots of methods to treat sleep apnea disorder. If you have a mild disorder, or your main problem is obesity, you can combine the following types of alternative treatments and have very good results:

• ·         Positional Therapy
• ·         Alternatives to CPAP
• ·         Weight Loss
• ·         Apnea Exercises
• ·         Or pharyngeal Exercises for Sleep Apnea and snoring
• ·         Tongue Exercises for Sleep Apnea

Treating Sleep Apnea-Positional Therapy:  

We heard the argument that if you elbow a snorer and they roll over, their snoring will stop. In some cases, this actually works and after rolling over, the snorer and the person doing the elbowing both get a good and quiet night's rest.

There are devices that you can purchase that help the snorer to sleep in a position that encourages less snoring, like bumper belt or anti snore shirt .The idea behind them is that if the snorer's body is in a certain position the airway through their throat will be more open and that allows a clearer passage of air. The more air that gets through, the less likely the person is to snore.

Sleeping on the side can also successfully treat sleep apnea disorder, when your condition is worse while sleeping on the back (lying flat). That's why during sleep studies, the technician wants some of your sleep while on your back - so that they can see if your sleep apnea is positional.

And that's why understanding your sleep study results are helpful because it shows, how bad your sleep apnea is in different positions when you are sleeping.

Techniques Available for Positional Therapy include:

Placing three to four tennis balls in a pocket sewn on the back of a pajama top. 

Pinning a sock filled with tennis balls to the back of a sleep garment. 

Sleeping with a filled backpack.

Sleeping with a bumper belt or anti snore shirt.

Using a posture alarm that is triggered whenever a person remains in a supine position.

Elevating the head and trunk at a 30 - 60 degree angle

 

·         Alternatives to CPAP

Over the last 15 to 20 years, the CPAP equipment and masks have become increasingly used. These machines are smaller, portable, and quieter.

However, if you can't tolerate your CPAP, even after you applied the advice from CPAP side effects, you may want to try the following alternatives to CPAP:

Treating Sleep Apnea-Sleep Apnea Dental Device:

An oral appliance or sleep apnea dental device is used to relieve upper airway obstruction and snoring by modifying the position of the mandible, tongue, and other oral-pharyngeal structures. An oral appliance also prevents the tongue from blocking the airway passages.

There are two types of Sleep Apnea Dental Devices:

1.       Mandibular Advancement Device (MAAs)

These are oral appliances that are fitted to the maxillary and mandibular dentition, and works by altering the position of the lower jaw, or mandible. The dental device pushes the lower jaw forward. This also repositions the tongue, which is attached to the lower jaw.

By repositioning the lower jaw and tongue, the oral appliance keeps airways open and prevents the appearance of snoring and apnea events.

   2. Tongue Retaining Devices (TRD)

This device reposition the tongue in an anterior position by securing it with negative pressure in a soft plastic bulb that directly contacts the base of the tongue.

 Other type of TRD uses a suction cup that attaches to the front of the tongue, pulling the tongue forward to prevent the back of the tongue from collapsing.

WHAT IS CENTRAL SLEEP APNEA?

Types of Sleep Apnea-Central And Mixed Apnea

Central Sleep Apnea

Central Apnea is when you repeatedly stop breathing while sleeping because the brain temporarily stops sending signals to the muscles that control breathing.

It occurs when the airway is NOT blocked, but the brain fails to signal the muscles to breathe because there is an underlying problem with the nerves that control the breathing problem which comes from the brain, and not from the upper airway.

So...even if you don't have an obstruction of the upper airway, you can still have this disorder.

How do you breathe while sleeping with CSA syndrome?

A person with this disorder has issues with the respiratory center from the brain. This center controls the chest muscles to make breathing movements. When the respiratory center stops working, then your breathing stops, too. The brain does not respond to the changes of the respiratory gas levels from the blood (oxygen and carbon dioxide).

In CSA, you stop breathing while sleeping for a period of time (at least 10 seconds), but there is no effort to breathe at all, like in OSA. Therefore, snoring is not present in central apnea.

Typically, you will wake up several times at night, often with the sensation of gasping or choking. If this waking up episode is frequent enough to cause disruption and making you restless during snooze, then you may feel very tired during daytime.

Causes of CSA:

The cause of this particular disorder is unknown, but there are risk factors that can influence the development, such as:

    * Age

    * Gender - There is an increased prevalence in the elderly

    * Sleep State

    * Thyroid Disease

    * Neurological or Cardio-logical abnormalities

    * Narcolepsy

It is often seen in people with panic about falling asleep. They breathe quickly which results in low levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. This is a problem. When they fall asleep, the breathing reflex fails to start, because of the low levels of carbon dioxide.

Nevertheless, central apnea is most commonly seen in persons with neurological disorders that affect the control center of respiration, such as:

    * Lesions of the brain stem

    * Cardiovascular disorders

    * Cerebral vascular disease

    * Lesions of the spinal cord

CSA can also occur in infants who are prematurely born. Such symptoms generally disappear in the first six months of age. However, there is an increased risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in infants who suffer from CSA.

The snoring is less common in central apnea, but it may be a symptom of mixed sleep apnea. In children, its syndrome is usually accompanied by a change in their facial color, such as a bluish or purplish skin, and they may also a change in their muscle tone like a limp body.

The long-term effects of CSA disorder are:

    * Abnormal heart rhythm.

    * Heart failure.

    * Lung complications.

    * Enlargement of the heart.

Mixed Sleep Apnea

As the name implies, it is the combination of the two types of apnea Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and Central Sleep Apnea (CSA). All three types of apnea cause sleep deprivation and oxygen deprivation.

Overview of OSA

Types of Sleep Apnea-Obstructive Sleep Apnea-OSA

Obstructive Sleep Apnea:

OSA occurs when air is physically blocked from entering the lungs during sleeping. When we are sleeping all our body parts relaxes and rest so the muscles of the upper respiratory tract (nose, mouth, pharynx and larynx) also relaxes but if they relaxed too much they collapses the air way. People with OSA have an airway that is more narrow than normal, usually at the base of the tongue and palate. When lying flat, the palate is above the air passage. When the pharyngeal muscles (muscles of the pharynx or throat)

A person who has obesity and is overweight is more likely to have this disorder. In male prevalence of OSA is three times higher women. The reasons are related to hormonal influence. Gender differences in the prevalence of OSA may also be related to body fat distribution. Men exhibit a more central fat distribution, including the neck, thereby increasing the risk for narrowing and closure of the upper airway. Postmenopausal women are at higher risk for obstructive apnea. This disorder is more common in African-Americans and Hispanics.

Numerous studies have shown correlations between the prevalence of OSA syndrome and obesity. Men and women with large neck sizes: 17 inches or more for men and 16 inches or more for women.

Although obesity is the most common cause of OSA, it also occurs in non-obese patients. 

Causes of OSA:

• Narrowing of the hard palate
• Nasal abnormalities including septal deviation and allergic rhinitis.
• Children with large tonsils and adenoids.
• People with Down Syndrome.
• Increasing age - when you become older, there is an increased risk to get a sleep disorder.
• Having this disorder genetically.

Evidence is accumulating that genetic factors may be involved in the pathogenesis of apnea disorder. The risk factors arise from changes to upper airway structure alteration in craniofacial structures.

Enlargement of important upper airway structures (tongue, soft palate, and lateral pharyngeal walls). Drugs, such as narcotics, benzodiazepines and alcohol.

Macroglossia associated with hypothyroidism contributes to the higher frequency of sleep disordered breathing.

Sleep apnea syndrome is more common and often severe in acromegalic patients (a chronic disease marked by enlargement of the bones of the extremities, face, and jaw) presumably related to a large tongue narrowing the upper airway.

Smoking - decrease the amount of oxygen in your blood and with alcohol reduces the upper airway tone relax the palate can fall backwards and this can obstruct the airway risk factors of obstructive sleep apnea.

Are You Having a Good Sleep ?