About 1 billion women and men around the world suffer from a sleep disorder that causes them to stop breathing for seconds to minutes at a time, hundreds or even thousands of times a night. Known as sleep apnea, this disorder increases your risk for life-threatening diseases and health conditions, such as:
The most common type of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and it’s associated with both snoring and gagging in your sleep. However, if you don’t snore, you could still have OSA. Other indications can be more subtle, but they’re just as important.
As a specialist who treats OSA, Kimberly Bolling, MD, knows how devastating the condition can be. At our office in Bowie, Maryland, we offer sleep studies that can determine whether you have OSA. If you do, Dr. Bolling designs a treatment plan to improve your sleep and your breathing.
Do you have sleep apnea, even if you don’t snore? As part of Sleep Apnea Awareness Month, we provide some signs that you might.
When you don’t get the deep, restorative rest your body needs, your brain can’t focus or function as well, either.
Your body requires that you go through several cycles of deep sleep during the night so your glymphatic system can flush away toxins from the brain. Gaps in your breathing that interrupt your sleep — even if they last for just seconds — may keep you from entering into that essential deep-sleep cycle.
When you find yourself forgetting names, misplacing items, or just drifting into daydreams, they could be signs that you have sleep apnea.
You always seem to have a sore throat or a dry mouth. Maybe you need to hydrate better. Or maybe you need a sleep apnea evaluation.
Your body is designed to breathe through your nose for optimal health. The little hairs in your nasal passages, called cilia, trap dirt and pathogens so they don’t get into your lungs. Your nasal passages also heat and moisten the air you breathe.
If your airway is blocked while you sleep, nasal breathing may be too difficult. So you start to breathe through your mouth instead. Mouth breathing at night increases your risk for snores and gasps that interrupt your sleep. That dry, itchy throat could be the result.
Sleep apnea and weight gain are intimately related. You’re more likely to have OSA, in which a body part (such as an enlarged neck, tongue, or tonsils) obstructs your airways at night if you’re overweight or obese.
A man whose neck measures 17 inches or more around or a woman whose neck is at least 16 inches is at increased risk for severe OSA. You can even push a case of mild OSA into the severe category if you increase your body weight by just 10%. Conversely, losing 10% of your body weight could improve your OSA by 20%.
The relationship works in the opposite direction, too. If you have sleep apnea, you’re more liable to gain weight because the apneas interrupt your circadian system.
The circadian system doesn’t just control when you feel sleepy and when you wake up in the morning. It controls your appetite and the hormones that regulate your feelings of fullness, too.
Obstructive sleep apnea raises your levels of ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates your appetite. It also lowers the production of leptin, the hormone that lets you know when you’re full. So, if you find yourself craving carbs and the pounds creep on, your interrupted sleep could be to blame.
When you have OSA, you’re more likely to develop glucose intolerance and insulin resistance. This increases your risk for diabetes.
Interrupted sleep also affects your lipids. If you have OSA, you’re more likely to have high triglycerides and low high-density lipoproteins (HDL) — otherwise known as the “good” cholesterol.
When it feels like you’re dragging yourself through your day — even though you think you got a good night’s sleep — you could have OSA. Without sufficient deep, restorative rest, it’s harder to get through normal activities. You might even find it impossible to do things such as work out at the gym or go for long walks.
Your fatigue leads to less activity, which leads to more weight gain. And the weight gain only worsens your OSA.
Start breathing — and sleeping — through the night again by booking an evaluation and treatment for sleep apnea today. Just call us or request an appointment online for a sleep study.
