If you have sleep apnea, then you know all too well that a good night’s sleep is necessary to a having a happy and productive life. Luckily, there are treatments that work for controlling sleep apnea and enjoying a good night’s sleep. This article will help you understand your options.
If you suffer from sleep apnea, you should use a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine while sleeping. This will help you treat your sleep apnea and get you on the path to having a full nights sleep. This machine uses either a face or nasal mask to pump air while you sleep.
Sleep apnea is usually diagnosed after a thorough medical examination. Your general practitioner may order a sleep study. Based upon this, he or she may give you a referral for a sleep specialist. Sleep specialists focus primarily on the diagnosis and treatment of people with sleep disorders.
Avoid sleeping pills when you find out you realize you are diagnosed with sleep apnea. They can relax your throat muscles, making it hard to get enough air when you sleep. The medication can be very dangerous, even fatal, if you suffer from sleep apnea.
If you have sleep apnea and use a CPAP when you sleep at night, do not neglect your filters. It can be easy to forget about this, but you need to make sure your machine operates at maximum efficiency. Wash your reusable filter at least every week, and replace your white pollen filter at least once a month.
Make sure to do some throat exercises every day to reduce any symptoms of sleep apnea. Try making silly faces and sticking out your tongue. It might seem funny, though according to some new studies, exercising your tongue and jaw on a daily basis can reduce the symptoms that you are experiencing.
There are different ways that sleep specialists will treat sleep apnea. They may start by treating an underlying medical condition, using oxygen while you are sleeping or utilizing breathing devices that will manage your obstructive sleep apnea. They could prescribe medications that will help with the sleepiness, but will not help with the apnea itself.
While sedatives and other sleep medications may help you fall asleep they are not so good when suffering from apnea. If possible, avoid taking any sleep aids to see if this improves your apnea problems. You just may find that something you thought was helping you to sleep was actually decreasing the quality of your sleep.
Try to find ways to really tire yourself out before going to bed. This means expending both your mental and physical energy before putting your head on the pillow. Going for a long walk is a great way to calm yourself down and clear your mind while also getting exercise.
One way to determine whether or not you may have sleep apnea is to have your partner report what they see, hear and feel during the night. While you might not notice yourself waking up, your partner may hear you snoring, tossing and turning, or gasping in the wee hours.
Taking steps to cure the condition of insomnia can lead to a significant reduction in sleep apnea episodes. Insomnia is a major cause of sleep apnea and when sufferers begin to get regular and restful sleep, the sleep apnea often disappears. Set a regular bedtime and make sure your bedroom is dark and quiet.
If you are trying to sleep on your side to avoid problems with sleep apnea, one way to do ensure you stay on your side is to put hard round object in your clothes. This will help you to stay on your side throughout an entire night’s sleep and avoid apnea.
Talk to a doctor. When you have sleep apnea, you must be sure to see a physician. This is because only a doctor can tell you which treatments are right for you. If you wait, you may find yourself in dire straits as well as feeling confused. See a doctor right away so you can treat your condition.
Be on the lookout for symptoms of sleep apnea that may occur during the daytime hours. Extreme drowsiness can occur at anytime when you suffer from sleep apnea. This can include spells of extreme sleepiness while you are driving a car. Do not ignore these symptoms as you can hurt not only yourself, but others as well.
Avoid alcohol, especially before you go to sleep. Alcohol can make a lot of disorders regarding sleep much worse, including sleep apnea. Alcohol relaxes your muscles and makes it harder to breath while you sleep. It can also prevent you from waking up when you stop breathing. This makes for a potentially deadly combination.
There are some dental devices that are available to help manage your sleep apnea. A tongue retaining device or a mandibular repositioning device both will help open up your airway to help reduces your sleep apnea. They work by repositioning your jaw or tongue so that your airways are not restricted while sleeping.
If you have sleep apnea and your doctor wants you to use a CPAP, focus on the health benefits of this treatment. It can be a difficult transition getting used to wearing a CPAP mask every night. You will be more motivated to stick with it if you think of the ways it will improve your overall health. Not only will you get a better night’s sleep, but you will have improvements in your blood pressure and your lung function as a result also.
If you have been diagnosed with sleep apnea, take your condition seriously. Stick with any treatment plan your doctor prescribes, including nightly use of your CPAP machine if necessary. Not only does sleep apnea leave you feeling drowsy and under-rested, but the chronic insomnia that results can increase your risk of stroke, depression and other more serious health conditions.
Since life is already filled with so many difficulties, sleep apnea should not be another one. This article is chock full of information that you can put to use to correct your sleep problems right away.