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Sleep Apnea Symptoms

Some people live with sleep apnea symptoms for years before they realize that they may have the condition. Sleep apnea is a condition in which there are pauses in breathing or shallow breaths while sleeping. Sometimes a partner who sleeps in bed with you is able to let you know that you have these symptoms but at times it can be difficult to tell. Sleep apnea can occur when the muscles of the throat become so over relaxed while you’re asleep that your airway closes and breathing stops for anywhere from a couple of seconds to a couple of minutes.

Symptoms Of Central Sleep Apnea

You may not realize you have sleep apnea because when your body detects that breathing has stopped it will usually be able to jump start breathing with a cough or snort to open the airway. These coughs or snorts may be so slight that they don’t wake you or those sleeping around you, which is why you may not even know that you have sleep apnea. In order to properly diagnose sleep apnea, a sleep apnea test should be performed. This test allows medical staff to monitor you while you sleep to help diagnose any sleep disorders that may manifest. After a diagnosis, our sleep physician will prescribe a course of sleep apnea treatment.

Sleep Study Clinic Los Angeles is an experienced sleep medicine clinic with physicians on staff who can diagnose and treat sleep apnea and other sleep disorders. Sleep Apnea Symptoms Signs that you may suffer from sleep apnea include excessive drowsiness during the daytime, fatigue, decrease energy, headaches, irritability, waking up with a sore throat or dry mouth on a regular basis, waking up from a deep sleep coughing or choking, and coughing, choking, or snorting so loud while asleep that it wakes up people sleeping nearby. While these sleep apnea symptoms might sound simple enough to observe, a physician should be allowed to make a diagnosis based on a medical evaluation to ensure that these symptoms are not being caused by an unidentified underlying factor.

Sleep Apnea Test At Home

A sleep apnea test is one of the techniques used by sleep physicians with Sleep Study Clinic Los Angeles to diagnose sleep apnea. This kind of test requires that your sleep be monitored overnight and your oxygen saturation and other vital signs recorded.

Our center utilizes the most advanced home sleep study equipment that you can wear comfortably while you sleep at your own home. Sometimes it is required that you spend a night asleep under medical observation so that any potential signs and symptoms of sleep apnea can be directly observed by a medical team. Sleep Study Clinic Los Angeles is unique in that it allows patients the option of an in home sleep study so that they can satisfy the requirements of the study from the comfort of home. 

Sleep Apnea Treatment 

Sleep physicians have a range of options available to them in the treatment / management of sleep apnea. In most cases, a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine is successful with keeping the airway open while you sleep.

You apply a face or nasal mask before you fall asleep and the machine continuously pumps air through a hose to force open relaxed muscles that support the structure of the throat and airway. Medications may also be an option, as may surgery – but most sleep physicians agree that surgery as a sleep apnea treatment is only a last resort reserved for when the severity of the sleep apnea is serious enough to warrant an invasive surgical procedure. Sleep Study Clinic Los Angeles To learn more about sleep apnea and what to do if you think you may suffer from it, or if you have already been diagnosed with sleep apnea and would like to discuss treatment options, contact the helpful medical staff of Sleep Study Clinic Los Angeles today.