Many people confuse sleep apnea with snoring but in reality apnea is a lot more serious and can even be fatal in extreme circumstances. Snoring, as everyone knows, is the noise omitted when breathing during sleep. Sleep apnea on the other hand is the sound of someone completely stopping breathing during sleep. This can happen for two reasons: firstly, because the soft palate at the back of the throat has collapsed and blocked the airway and secondly because the respiratory part of the brain forgets to tell the lungs to breathe.
The first kind of apnea mentioned here is called obstructive sleep apnea and can be remedied by visiting your City of London dentist who will be able to diagnose the problem and then fit an appliance that can be worn during sleep to prevent this from happening. The other kind of apnea is central sleep apnea and is a more serious problems that may require more serious medical attention.
If sleep apnea is not treated it can be behind a whole series of medical problems ranging from stress, to anxiety to an inability to concentrate, especially among children. Sleep apnea also puts tremendous pressure on the heart and can cause heart problems and even heart attacks if the circumstance dictate.
This temporary cessation of breathing can happen several hundred times a night which as you can imagine doesn’t lead to a very good night’s sleep for you or anyone else that may be sleeping near you. To find out more make an appointment to talk to your dentist about the dangers of sleep apnea.
However, sleep apnea has a slightly darker side than snoring. Whereas snoring is the sound of an obstruction in the airway when breathing, apnea is the sound a person makes when they have completely stopped breathing. This may happen several times during the night and in some cases hundreds of times. The cessation of breathing that causes apnea has two main causes. The most common is caused when the airway is blocked by a collapsing soft palate at the back of the throat. This temporarily stops the person breathing before it rights itself. This is known as obstructive sleep apnea. The other type of sleep apnea is called central sleep apnea and is caused when a malfunction in the main respiratory area of the brain forgets to send a message to the lungs to breath.
