1.Is snoring a disease?
Snoring is what people usually call snoring while sleeping, which is a common thing and often considered as a performance of sleeping well, so it is seldom paid attention to or linked to health and disease.
The upper airway of snorers is not clear enough, so they are often awakened by suffocation. Moreover, due to the narrow airway, the resistance of airflow increases, so snorers often breathe with their mouths open during sleep, allowing the dry cold air to enter the throat directly, which can easily cause pharyngitis, pharyngeal congestion and edema when they wake up, and aggravate the narrowing of airway, which can lead to complete obstruction of upper airway and respiratory arrest in serious cases.
A large number of studies have found that respiratory arrest during sleep lasting more than 10 seconds can cause a significant reduction in oxygen in the patient’s blood and cause hypoxia in the body, thus the respiratory arrest of more than 10 seconds is called apnea. Occasionally, apnea can occur in normal people during sleep, but it is generally not too harmful to the body and therefore has no clinical significance. Only when this apnea occurs frequently, with a frequency of more than 5 times per hour, it can cause a series of clinical manifestations due to the repeated occurrence of hypoxia and the patient repeatedly waking up from sleep, which is medically called sleep apnea syndrome.
The incidence of sleep apnea syndrome in adults over 30 years of age is about 4%, with a male to female ratio of about 3 to 4:1. It is estimated that about 3,000 people die from the disease every day worldwide. Almost all patients have a history of snoring during sleep, and about 1 in 5 snorers suffer from the disease.
2.Sleep apnea syndrome has those hazards
Patients with sleep apnea syndrome not only suffer from daytime sleepiness and drowsiness due to frequent suffocating awakenings at night and poor sleep quality, but also from recurrent episodes of low oxygen and increased carbon dioxide, which can cause patients of all ages to experience.
headaches, memory loss, irritability, and mental disorders.
Hypertension, coronary artery disease, heart failure, macrovascular disease (e.g., entrapped aneurysms).
Cerebrovascular disease.
Pulmonary heart disease and respiratory failure.
Cerebral hemorrhage, cerebral infarction.
Renal failure.
Diabetes mellitus.
Sexual dysfunction, etc.
Sudden death.
Thus, it is clear that such snoring can not be called “sweet”, but a potentially serious disease!
3.Who are prone to snoring (snoring)
There are factors that cause the throat not to be narrow: obesity, small jaw, thick and short neck, chronic rhinitis, swelling in the throat, etc. Overworking, drinking alcohol, taking sleeping pills can be triggering factors.
4.Which snorers need to be especially alert to sleep apnea syndrome
Although there are various manifestations of snoring with sleep apnea syndrome, most patients have the following common features.
Loud and uneven snoring sound.
Respiratory arrest during sleep.
Abnormal movement during sleep.
Daytime drowsiness, uncontrollable drowsiness while watching TV, meeting, riding in a car or listening to lectures, drowsiness is an important cause of traffic accidents
Daytime fatigue and weakness, drowsiness of mind.
Obesity.
Dry mouth in the morning, headache, dizziness.
Memory loss, slow reaction time, decreased academic performance.
Diminished male function.
Nocturnal enuresis.
Of course, not every patient has the above characteristics, especially when the disease is mild, the patient himself does not know, his wife, children, friends often have the best opportunity to observe the patient’s apnea episodes, their observations and narratives can often provide valuable diagnostic clues.
5, how to detect sleep apnea syndrome early and timely consultation
If you have more than 30 episodes of respiratory arrest longer than 10 seconds during 7 hours of sleep at night, or apnea hypoventilation index more than 5 times per hour, that may constitute a health hazard due to lack of oxygen and frequent suffocation awakening, a series of clinical manifestations, medically known as sleep apnea syndrome. Its main manifestations are as follows.
Daytime manifestations: drowsiness; fatigue, sleep without relieving fatigue, memory loss, work ability, poor academic performance; agitation and irritability; morning headache, dizziness, dry mouth; impotence and loss of libido.
Nocturnal manifestations: snoring; frequent occurrence of apnea; abnormal movements during sleep; insomnia, excessive dreams, nightmares; polyuria, enuresis; breath-holding.
If you find that your family members or friends have the above abnormal performance, you should seek medical consultation promptly.
6.How sleep apnea syndrome is diagnosed
Polysomnography is the best means to confirm the diagnosis of sleep apnea and to determine its type (central, obstructive and mixed) and severity (mild, moderate, severe). For patients diagnosed with this disease, ear, nose and throat and oral examination should also be performed to understand the presence of local anatomical and developmental abnormalities, hyperplasia and tumors to further search for the cause and determine the treatment plan.
7.How to treat sleep apnea syndrome after it is diagnosed (mainly obstructive type)
General treatment: lose weight, change body position, quit smoking and alcohol, avoid taking sleeping pills.
Medication: uncertain efficacy, acetazolamide, methacholine, etc., drugs for rhinitis.
Instrumental treatment: n-CPAP, BiPAP ventilator,oral orthodontic appliances.