Sleep apnea can be brutal to deal with. However, there are a number of different ways to go about treating sleep apnea and its symptoms. By learning about how sleep apnea works, you can maximize your chances of beating it. To clarify the question, “How is sleep apnea treated”, read our breakdown of symptoms, treatment methods, and additional services that specialized facilities can provide.
What Is Sleep Apnea?
In short, sleep apnea is a condition where you temporarily stop breathing during your sleep. This happens primarily because an obstruction develops in your airway. This causes you to wake up suddenly and have to clear it. This results in a couple of major problems. First, it is naturally frustrating to repeatedly wake up unpleasantly. Second, the temporary lack of breathing may seem inconsequential, but it can actually have severe repercussions for your cardiovascular system.
Signs You May Have Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Before you can start treating your sleep apnea, you first need to be able to identify its symptoms. While this may seem pretty easy and obvious, the truth is that sleep apnea is a little more complicated than having difficulty sleeping. For example, general difficulty concentrating may seem unrelated, but it is actually closely tied to sleep apnea. This makes a lot of sense once you realize that problems with sleeping can easily manifest in fatigue and concentration problems throughout the day.
There can also be more insidious complications, such as depression and the development of other conditions. It can be difficult to tie these back to sleep apnea if you do not know what you are looking for, so it is critical that you start checking for patterns immediately.
Finally, cardiovascular problems are actually a strong warning sign of sleep apnea. This is because sleep apnea involves a temporary lack of breathing. In turn, this lack of breathing can exacerbate existing heart problems and stress the cardiovascular system beyond its limits.
If you experience any of these symptoms, you may want to look into treatment for sleep apnea. At Sacramento Surgical Arts, our trained professionals will diagnose you and help you get treatment.
How Is Sleep Apnea Treated?
There are several steps to accurately treat sleep apnea. First, it is common to participate in a sleep study where you spend a night under observation. This can make it much easier for your health care provider to identify the exact problem you are having and create an effective solution for you.
Once the sleep study is complete, there are a number of different sleep apnea treatment solutions available. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices are masks that you place on your face while sleeping. Throughout the night, they gently blow air into the body and make it much harder for obstructions to form.
Other common solutions include dental implants, surgery, and chest implants. Whether one solution will be more effective than the others largely comes down to what our staff discovers during the sleep study.
How We Can Help You
In many cases, sleep apnea is just one component of a larger problem. For example, sleep apnea is often an oral problem, so you may also have issues regarding wisdom teeth extraction, impacted canine teeth, or facial trauma treatment. At a facility like Sacramento Surgical Arts, you can get professional assistance in dealing with all of these problems. We will help you identify issues you may not even know you had.
At the end of the day, remember that you do not have to deal with sleep apnea alone. The professionals at our specialized facility can help you. Contact us at 866.930.5837 today.
