If you have sleep apnea, it is possible to receive a prescription for a continuous positive airway pressure device (CPAP). This device is placed over your nose and mouth and produces positive pressure (like a vacuum cleaner on reverse) that forces open your airway and causes more oxygen to flow into your upper airways and lungs. By stopping the drop in oxygen levels and frequent wakening, the device allows your body to pass through all the cycles of sleep. CPAP has been shown to conserve sleep energy and improve daytime energy levels.
Oral appliances – which you can obtain from a dentist – to reposition the jaw muscle and tongue and increase the airwave space can be almost as effective as CPAP in moderate apnea; and people tend to prefer the less invasive nature of an appliance compared to the CPAP device. Surgery should be the last option, and would only be useful for anatomical defects of genetic origin.
Before going for these big-gun prescription devices, however, there are a few changes you can make in your sleep habits that may reduce, or even resolve, sleep apnea.
• Lose weight. It is dramatically beneficial for sleep apnea; a 10 per cent weight loss produces a 26 per cent reduction in apnea.
• Reduce alcohol intake, especially later in the evening. Alcohol can over-relax the muscles in the throat and pharynx and contribute to their collapse.
• Elevate your head by 30 degrees (pillow specialty stores sell wedges to place under your head) to reduce the force of gravity on your throat.
• Switch to sleeping on your side instead of your back, again to avoid the forces of gravity. Use a pillow as a bolster to hold onto and help keep you in the side sleeping position.
• Tenacious back sleepers can try the sleep ball technique, in which you actually attach a tennis ball to the seat of your pajamas to prevent you from sleeping on your back.
Page 2 of 2 -- Could you be suffering from sleep apnea? Learn more on page 1.
Excerpted from The Source, copyright 2008 by Woodson Merrell. Used by permission of Random House Canada.All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.
