Obstructive sleep apnea raises a chance of major medical problems like diabetes, heart disease, excessive blood pressure, and stroke. Furthermore, increasing your chance of a traffic accident and occupational injuries is extreme daytime tiredness from the consequent sleep deprivation.
Once diagnosed, obstructive sleep apnea can be treated with several choices to lower these health risks. The course of treatment relies on the cause and degree of the condition.
Is obstructive sleep apnea curable?
Though it is hardly cured, obstructive sleep apnea can be treated and controlled. To improve the quality of your sleep, lifestyle modifications and CPAP-based therapy choices can help to lower, sometimes completely eradicate, obstructive sleep apnea symptoms.
You will have to keep under control of the condition to stop symptoms from returning.
Lifestyle Modifications
For those diagnosed with mild to moderate sleep apnea, modifications in lifestyle could greatly help symptoms. Such adjustments could comprise:
One main contributing cause of obstructive sleep apnea is obesity. Working with you, your healthcare professional will identify a suitable weight loss strategy that can call for more fruit and vegetables as part of a better diet and more activity.
- Stop smoking: Smoking raises a person's risk of inflammation and airway constriction. If one is frequently around a smoker, inflammation can impact even non-smoking people.
- Stay away from alcohol. Drinking alcohol before bed can affect airflow since it is a relaxant that might aggravate the airways' blockage.
- Better sleep hygiene: Consistent bedtimes help encourage sleep; a quiet bedroom with a pleasant temperature and no light-emitting screens can also help.
Exercises aimed at strengthening the throat and mouth muscles could help stop tissues blocking the airways from collapsing.
Should you find yourself sleeping on your back, gravity dragging the tongue back into the mouth and blocking the airways could aggravate your sleep apnea.
Your doctor or sleep specialist may thus advise sleeping on your side since this will help your sleep apnea symptoms and ease your breathing problems.
Treatments for Sleep Apnea: Alternatives
Treatments for sleep apnea help to control the condition, lowering and sometimes eradicating symptoms. Those with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, who also most likely have been encouraged to make some lifestyle modifications, are advised generally to follow these guidelines. Possibilities comprise:
CPAP: Through a mask worn while you sleep, this device constantly pumps compressed air. Pressurizing the air helps to maintain free flow of the airways free from impediment.
Like CPAP, a BiPAP reduces air pressure upon exhaling, which some users find more tolerable.
Usually by pushing the jaw forward or by preventing the tongue from slipping back against the airways, oral appliances—which are custom-fitted devices put in the mouth—help maintain the airways open.
Two valves covering the nose while you sleep allow an emerging choice called EPAP to work. EPAP employs exhaled air to generate pressure to maintain the airways free, so it does not call for a mask or a gadget.
Treatment choices and lifestyle adjustments help to control obstructive sleep apnea by lowering and occasionally eliminating symptoms. This helps sleep and lowers the risk of major health problems connected to untreated sleep apnea.