Posted January 5, 2011 in Plans

Sleep apnea is a condition that results in regular breathing being halted for periods of just a few seconds to as long as a minute and a half. It is most likely to occur in overweight individuals but that is not always the case and research indicates that up to 25% of Americans suffer from apnea to some degree.

Signs that you may have apnea include not feeling rested upon waking, fatigue throughout the day, and brain fog, along with symptoms that your doctor can measure such as elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol, and elevated cortisol.

Because the body is basically suffocating many times throughout the night, apnea produces a number of harmful effects, such as impaired immune function, memory loss, heart disease, and even obesity.

While the generally-prescribed test involves an overnight sleep study that will cost thousands of dollars, research has shown that the exact same results can be had in the comfort of your own home with a pulse oximeter. For Free!

Sleep apnea produces a number of harmful effects, such as elevated blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, impaired immune function, fatigue, memory loss, and can complicate underlying diseases, increasing the risk of premature death.

A big issue with sleep apnea is that many sufferers are completely unaware they have it and may be taking prescription drugs to treat symptoms like high blood pressure, or even caffeine to help with more general issues, such as fatigue.

Interrupted sleep due to oxygen deprivation sets off an alarm during a time when the body is recharging its batteries. Proper sleep is required for the body to produce cellular energy, called adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which accounts for sleep apnea sufferers’ difficulty in staying alert throughout the day.

In addition, the support system for the major organs, called the adrenal glands, will be forced to work at a time when the body is supposed to be resting. These glands can become overworked, producing a chronic stream of stress hormones. Furthermore, some hormones that are naturally produced during sleep are typically at very low levels in sleep apnea patients, leading to a host of other issues.

There are three different forms of sleep apnea with the most common being obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), followed by central sleep apnea (CSA), and a combination of the two called complex sleep apnea.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea

OSA occurs when the upper airway becomes blocked by a sagging soft pallet and breathing is temporarily stopped. When the body detects lowered blood oxygen levels, the brain sends out an emergency signal which results in a deep breath and often snoring. This generally occurs a number of times throughout the night, preventing the body from achieving a deep, restorative sleep.

Obesity is a common cause of OSA due to the increased amount of soft tissue around the airway, but it may also be due to poor muscle tone or aging.

Central Sleep Apnea

There is no physical obstruction involved in CSA, but rather a problem with the brain's monitoring of oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood. Instead of quickly recognizing raised levels of carbon dioxide as it would while awake, the body’s sensitivity is lessened, allowing breathing to drop off periodically during sleep. Once levels reach a dangerous range, the body’s emergency response kicks in and breathing begins again.

While CSA is considered to be rare, it may not actually be. The reason is that the condition usually goes undiagnosed because CSA is not necessarily associated with the typical signs found in OSA, such as obesity.

Regardless of whether it's OSA, CSA or complex apnea, all sleep apnea leads to a shortened lifespan if allowed to continue untreated.

Home Oximetry

When most physicians consider testing patients for sleep apnea there are two problems: cost and convenience. The standard analysis, polysomnography, is performed at a sleep clinic with expensive diagnostic equipment designed to measure the depth of sleep stages, brain activity, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, heart rate and rhythm, and a host of others.

Many patients suspected of having sleep apnea go unchecked because the usual diagnosis is expensive and requires them to spend a full night hooked up to wires in a lab.

However, there is an alternative diagnosis available that will cost nothing and can be performed in the comfort of a patient's home. It is called overnight home oximetry.

With home oximetry, patients simply place a sensor on their index finger and go to sleep like any other night. While sleeping, the oximeter continually measures blood oxygen levels and stores them for analysis by your doctor. The data is usually sent to doctors within a few days, at which point he will contact the patient to tell them they're clear or schedule an appointment to discuss solutions, such as C-PAP.

Best of all, overnight home oximetry is just as accurate as the standard sleep study. In 2004, the University of Calgary randomized two hundred and eighty-eight patients suspected of suffering from sleep apnea and evaluated them using either polysomnography or overnight home oximetry. The difference between the two was not significant with prediction rates of 0.61 for polysomnography and 0.64 for home oximetry [1].

References
[1] American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Vol 171. pp. 188-193, (2005)

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