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Nearly every tech company that actually produces a physical product is getting into the sleep monitoring game. If a company isn't making hardware, they're looking at ways to use apps to track the quality of your sleep. If you use a search engine to look for wearable sleep trackers, you'll find all kinds of information about products designed to help you sleep better at night. There are trackers, cooling pads, white noise machines, blue-blocking glasses to wear in the evenings, and devices that will track your pulse and oxygen levels. Americans are really interested in sleep.
Which is interesting because Americans are getting less and less sleep. An article in The Economist suggests that up to two-thirds of Americans are getting less than seven hours of sleep. This is down from the almost nine hours of sleep many of our grandparents used to get. The reasons for this are many and complex, but no one would argue that one of the culprits for many people is sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea is a condition in which a person actually stops breathing for a bit during the night. There are various causes of sleep apnea and they are treatable, which is great news, and we're able to help with that. But before we get into that, let's take a moment to look at the types of sleep apnea because they may give you a better sense of what you may be dealing with.
The first type is obstructive sleep apnea. This is the common type of sleep apnea and it occurs for a number of reasons. As the name suggests, there is an obstruction which prevents a person from being able to breathe while asleep. Some of the causes of obstructive sleep apnea include excessive weight, a wide neck circumference, smoking, and even allergies. No matter what the cause, what happens is that you are prevented from breathing in, your brain slightly wakes you up, you clear the obstruction by coughing or snorting, and then you fall back to sleep. This wouldn't be an issue for a person if it only happened once a night. For many people, without even knowing it, they go through a pattern of obstructed airway, waking, and sleeping many times an hour. No wonder a person with sleep apnea is getting terrible sleep.
Central sleep apnea is another type of sleep apnea which differs from the obstructive type in a significant way. Rather than being primarily connected to external and environmental factors, it's the autonomic nervous system that's the issue. This part of your nervous system controls all the stuff you don't think about like digestion and breathing. If the nervous system doesn't send the correct message to parts of the body that deal with breathing, like the diaphragm, a person has a reaction similar to the obstructive type which, again, messes with the quality of sleep one can get. Treatment options are similar to obstructive.
Lastly, we come to the person with complex sleep apnea syndrome. This is a tough one because it happens in people who have both obstructive and central sleep apnea at the same time. What a rough condition to be in! We have a lot of sympathy for folks who find themselves in that situation because sleep is elusive.
But, sympathy doesn't get one very far and we're not the kind of people to pat someone on the back and say, "that's rough!" We want to be a part of a solution for folks with any kind of sleep apnea. Fortunately, there are options for treating sleep apnea, whether it's for you, a friend, a loved one, or a spouse. We have a state of the art night guard that can help you get a handle on snoring and sleep apnea. A lot of other treatments either involve complicated and frustrating equipment or long time lines in order to get healthier. Getting healthier is the goal and that will make a huge impact on the severity of sleep apnea, but you need some help during that time and after, too, and we can get it done for you.
If you or a loved one is suffering from snoring and sleep apnea, make an appointment with us today. We want to help you get out of that category of seven hours of sleep a night or less and help you sleep more like your grandparents did: healthy and soundly.
Align Orthodontics In Grand Rapids offers oral sleep appliances that can treat snoring and sleep apnea. These devices are custom-made to reduce obstructive sleep.
