What is sleep apnea?
Sleep apnea is a common but serious disorder in which your breathing repeatedly stops and starts while you sleep. These pauses can happen dozens — even hundreds — of times a night, each one pulling you out of restful sleep without you ever knowing it. The result is that you can spend eight hours in bed and still wake up unrefreshed.
It's estimated that the majority of people with sleep apnea are never diagnosed. The good news: once identified, it's one of the most treatable sleep conditions we see.
The two types
Obstructive (OSA)
The most common form. The muscles at the back of your throat relax during sleep and collapse the airway, blocking airflow despite your effort to breathe.
Central (CSA)
Less common. The brain briefly fails to send the right signals to the muscles that control breathing, so effort to breathe momentarily stops.
Common symptoms
- 1 Loud snoring
- 2 Gasping or choking at night
- 3 Witnessed pauses in breathing
- 4 Morning headaches
- 5 Excessive daytime sleepiness
- 6 Trouble concentrating & irritability
How we diagnose it
Getting answers is simpler than most people expect. A typical path with us looks like: