Sleeping with Sleep Apnea

If you have laid next to someone and been awakened to the sound of them breathing while asleep, then you may be familiar with the sound of sleep apnea. The most common and noticeable symptom of sleep apnea is the snoring, snoring so loud you could swear a Harley-Davidson was in the room. Although snoring doesn’t always mean a patient is experiencing sleep apnea, it is a pretty sure guess. And lying awake, you hear the pauses in breathing. Between each breath, you wait… and you wait for the next breath to come. Enough time that you consider the question, how long is too long to wait for the next breath. And if it’s too long, will they die? Then it comes, that next breath followed by your own breath of relief. How much sleep have you lost while wishing there was a comfortable fix so you could get more sleep?

The Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study estimated in 1993 that roughly one in every 15 Americans were affected by at least moderate sleep apnea. Many nights sleeping are disrupted by apnea, the abnormal pauses in breathing. These pauses may be for seconds or even minutes. Apnea can occur 5 to 30 times an hour according a report filed to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute in August 2010. Such irregular breathing takes its toll on the body. Many sufferers of sleep apnea experience daily fatigue and increased health issues such as high blood pressure and heart disorders resulting from sleep apnea.

There are many suggested treatments for sleep apnea, but currently, the most commonly used and most commonly rejected is the CPAP machine. The CPAP machine generates the required air pressure or continuous positive airway pressure to keep the patient's airways open during sleep. The unpleasant CPAP mask is worn at night during sleep to continuously push air through the nasal passages to make breathing easier. Many users of the CPAP fail to find success with this device due to the discomfort of the mask. It covers both the nose and mouth quite snug to the point of discomfort, even giving a sense of suffocation reported by some users. Patients are left hoping for something else.

Now, there is an alternative on the market. This alternative is a single use patch, with a small plug for each nostril, worn on the nose to keep just the right amount of air pressure flowing to promote sufficient air passage through the airways. This device, known as Provent, is gaining rapidly in demand. Patients are finding out about it and requesting it directly from the manufacturer through a prescription from their doctors. In the medical journal Sleep, a large study of apnea sufferers found their apnea episodes drop sharply with the use of the Provent. While researchers caution that it may not be an effective treatment for all suffering from sleep apnea, it sure does help to keep the hope that better sleep is in the future.