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.

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.

Are you tired of being Sleepy?

You're tired of being tired all the time. Days go by in a blur. You wake up foggy-headed, probably cranky. You survive the day with lots of caffeine. Chronically fatigued, falling asleep during the day - sometimes in embarrassing places.

And you suffer because you haven't managed to conquer your sleep apnea. But that's not from a lack of trying. You've asked your doctor what you can do to cure your sleep apnea. His only suggestion is the dreaded CPAP.

In his research, he talked to a lot of people who suffer from this disorder. Many are struggling to find a way to cure their apnea and THROW AWAY their CPAP. But they're not getting much help from their doctors.

Many people have told me that they have been on CPAP for months, with no relief in their AHI (Apnea-Hypopnea Index). It's not just that CPAP is ineffective for some people. CPAP users suffer countless problems when using the machine. Here's just a few of the problems people have with CPAP:

• Headache
• Ear pressure
• Nasal congestion
• Dry mouth
• Sinus problems
• Claustrophobia

I know what you're thinking at this point. You're asking yourself "why is it so important to cure this disorder - I just want to get a better night's sleep so I don't feel so groggy during the day. Can't I just take some pills so I can get a better night's sleep and get on with my life?"

The fact is, sleep apnea can KILL YOU eventually. And I'm not just talking about the much higher chance that you'll be in a car crash if you have apnea (although that's definitely a factor). As stated by Dr. Michael J. Twery, director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research:

"Sleep apnea is not a condition that kills you acutely. It is a condition that erodes your health over time."

Over time, this disorder has been proven to lead to a long list of nasty diseases.

According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, these are just some of the side effects of sleep apnea:

• High blood pressure
• Eye disorders, including glaucoma, conjunctivitis, and dry eye
• Irregular menstrual periods
• High-risk pregnancies
• Liver damage
• Seizures, epilepsy, and other nerve disorders
• Diabetes
• Kidney failure
• Stroke
• Heart failure

Bear in mind that 95% of the people who suffer from sleep apnea will continue to suffer with CPAP. But I don't think you would have read this far if you were the type of person to follow the crowd.



Click here to learn more about Sleep Apnea Relief

WHAT IS SLEEP APNEA DISORDER?

Sleep Apnea is a common physiological disorder characterized by reduction of breathing during sleep. Breathing pauses lasts from 10-20 seconds they often occur 5-30 times an hour while you sleep and then normal breathing starts again.                                                                                                                                                         

Apnea means a period of time in which breathing is stopped or markedly reduced. It is a chronic condition that disrupts your nap you often move out of deep sleep and into light sleep when your breathing pauses this results in poor sleep quality that makes you tired throughout the day and it is one of the major causes of excessive daytime sleepiness.

This condition is common in adults and is often related to obesity. In children common causes of this disorder is Tonsillitis (a condition in which children have enlarged tonsils tissues in their throats) in many cases usually people don't know that they have a disorder because it occurs only in sleep so the diagnosis of this disorder is little complicated.

Symptoms:

• Extremely loud snoring.
• Choking.      
• Loud pauses in breathing 
• Day time sleepiness no matter how much time you on bed
• Waking up with dry mouth.
• Morning headaches.
• Restlessness.
  
• Insomnia.
• Going to bathroom frequently during night.
• Forgetfulness.  
• Difficulty in concentrating.
• Irritability.
• Depression.
• Fatigue.
• Difficulty performing work.
• Anxiety.
  
• Emotional problems.
• Social problems.
• Difficulty in learning new tasks.
• Sexual dysfunction.                                                                                     

Types of Apnea:

There are three types of apnea:

1. Obstructive.
2. Central.
3. Mixed.