Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a medical condition and sleeping disorder that causes you to stop breathing for about 20 seconds many times throughout the night. Each time you stop breathing, your body rouses itself to force you to start breathing again. Each of these stop-start breathing cycles is called an apnea event, and they essentially prevent you from getting restful sleep, leading to moderate to severe sleep deprivation. OSA can cause significantly negative impacts on your life. Some are more at risk to develop OSA than others, the question is: are you at risk?
Apnea events can happen anywhere from 40 (mild sleep apnea) to 240+ (severe sleep apnea) times per night. You won’t remember these events in the morning, but you'll just feel very sleep deprived and be unsure of why.
However, the consequences of sleep deprivation are too severe to go unattended.
While there are many potential consequences, they are all related to causing:
There are various factors that will put you at risk for developing OSA, including:
Let’s look at these risk factors in more detail.
Obstructive sleep apnea may go undiagnosed because you won’t notice some of the telling signs, such as not breathing at night and snoring loudly.
There are certain medical and biological factors that increase your risk for developing OSA. They include the following:
Physical risk factors for obstructive sleep apnea relate to the physical attributes of your body. You may have some control over these, such as with your weight. You may not have control over these factors, such as having a small airway.
Here are primary physical risk factors that may influence the development or severity of OSA.
Though medical and physiological risk factors can play a large role in developing OSA, lifestyle factors also can spark the onset of OSA. Some lifestyle factors linked to OSA include:
Fortunately, unlike medical and physiological risk factors, which may require medical intervention such as CPAP therapy, lifestyle factors may treated on their own by things like:
The vast majority of people who suffer from sleep apnea treat it with CPAP therapy, which provides constant positive airway pressure (CPAP) using CPAP devices. Surgery is usually not needed.
For mild cases of sleep apnea, non-medical interventions may be recommended by your doctor.
If you live in Alaska and need to confirm a sleep apnea diagnosis, please contact us to get a sleep study (they are normally covered by insurance). You can also click below to take a free online sleep test!