Understanding Obstructive Sleep Apnea – For The Patient And Family

Some people assume their lack of sleep for extended periods of time is a normal occurrence. This simply isn’t true. Dealing with sleep apnea is an issue many people suffer with, and it is best to be educated about this condition.

If you have sleep apnea because of naturally narrow airways, get a sleep mouth guard. Using these guards encourages proper jaw alignment and helps keep the breathing passages fully open while you sleep. If you think this will help, you should ask your physician to fit you with a mouth guard.

Avoid contact with cigarette smoke and consumption of alcohol if you have been diagnosed with sleep apnea. Drinking and smoking are the biggest offenders. Drinking relaxes your airway to prevent proper breathing. Smoking damages your lungs over time. Dropping both these habits entirely will help ease the symptoms of sleep apnea.

Do you sometimes drink or smoke? Try to rid yourself of these horrible habits. These substances can really harm your airways. Smoking swells up your airways, while drinking depresses your nervous system and muscles into excess relaxation. This can both cause and exacerbate sleep apnea. If you are having trouble quitting either of these habits, at least try to abstain in the few hours before bedtime.

Talk to your doctor about fitting you with a mouth piece you can wear at night. You might have a narrow breathing passage, recessed chin, or small jaw naturally that can worsen sleep apnea. You can overcome these difficulties and experience much more restful sleep by using a custom-fitted device to keep your jaw and airway properly aligned.

Giving up smoking and drinking can help to improve your sleep apnea. These habits can cause airways to relax too much, which can worsen sleep apnea and snoring. Remember that surgery and medications are expensive. Correcting bad habits is free.

Children are susceptible to sleep apnea. If you find your child is innatentive, always tired or uses their mouth to breath and not their nose, they may suffer from this condition. Sometimes parents mistakenly think these symptoms have to do with something like ADHD, and it is best that you talk to your child’s doctor to find the true culprit.

Speak with your physician about getting a mouth piece that can help you breathe better. Sleep apnea can be magnified in effects by small jaws and recessed chins, as well as breathing passageways that are naturally narrow. A device made to assist you during sleep can provide you with enough air to flow through your body.

Without a partner in your bed to tell you how you sleep, you may not know that you experience sleep apnea. One way to see is to set up a video camera to record yourself as you sleep. The video should also have audio to listen for any noises.

Learning how to play a wind instrument is something which can help ease the symptoms of your sleep apnea. In Germany, research has been done that suggests playing the didgeridoo will train the muscles of the upper airway. This muscle group manages airway dilation and stiffening. These are great reasons to take up playing this instrument and easing the symptoms of sleep disorders.

If you suffer from sleep apnea, avoid using sleeping pills. These pills can cause your throat muscles to relax and keep your airways from properly functioning. Sleep medicines can cause more problems and can even be dangerous for people with apnea.

To keep your sleep apnea in check, eat a healthy diet to lose weight. You’d be surprised at how much a healthy diet can help you with sleep apnea. It’s been proven that poor diets can contribute to the severity of sleep apnea.

Sleep Apnea

Try to avoid sleeping pills when you’re suffering from sleep apnea. Sleeping pills can make it so your airways don’t function correctly. This can be deadly when combined with sleep apnea. Sleeping pills are a bad idea.

Many doctors ask patients to keep sleep logs to help diagnose sleep apnea. You would record your total hours of sleep each night, as well as symptoms that occur. Ask your partner for more specific information on how loud your snoring is, the quality of your breathing and even how restful you were. This helps the doctor discern whether you have sleep apnea or not.

You should get a machine to stop snoring. Snoring is precursor to sleep apnea. Snoring indicates the airway is blocked. Sleep apnea indicates the airway is fully blocked for a period of time. So, anything that helps relieve the first issue will also help with the second. Your sleep apnea may benefit from the use of a stop snoring device.

When you suffer from sleep apnea, you should do your best to stick to the same sleep schedule each day. Sleep apnea causes regular interruptions in your ordinary nightly sleep cycle. Any steps you take towards a regular sleeping schedule will help you get a better night’s sleep. So try and get into bed around the same times every night.

You shouldn’t be smoking if you are afflicted with sleep apnea. Smoking causes swelling in the upper airway, which makes sleep apnea worse. To quit smoking, try a smoking cessation program or use nicotine replacement therapy. For most individuals, the first month is the worst. Once you are past that point, your nicotine cravings lessen drastically.

Now that you have learned more about sleep apnea from what you have read here, you will be better armed to be on the lookout for it in your life. Do not believe that chronic tiredness is normal. Speak to your physician about sleep apnea and sleep better.

If you do tongue exercises you will allieviate sleep apnea symptoms. Try holding your tongue up toward the roof of your mouth for at least three minutes. You will make your muscles stronger, and you will have better results with your other treatments.