Sleep apnea on the rise

Sleep doctor estimates that 80 percent of population has illness

Tri-County Times | Fenton, MI Hannah Ball Staff Reporter | TCTimes.com

If you get eight hours of sleep a night and still feel tired in the morning, you might have sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is the often noisy condition that prevents millions of people from getting a good night’s rest.

Mid-Michigan Sleep Center Doctor George Zureikat, M.D. said “It’s a serious illness. It will affect the heart and the brain.” It also increases someone’s risk of becoming diabetic and gaining weight. Sleep apnea is the condition when throat muscles relax too much during sleep, which closes off the airway causing someone to stop breathing. Zureikat specializes in sleep apnea and sees people with the condition every day.

Sleep apnea is more prevalent in people who have smaller jaws and are overweight. If someone’s jaw is too far back in their head, or if there’s more tissue in the back of someone’s throat, there’s less space for the airway.

“They don’t have enough room to breathe. Everyone is built different,” he said.

Snoring could be an indicator of sleep apnea, but not everyone who snores has the condition.

Zureikat said 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women over 40 snore at night, but not all of them have sleep apnea.

Loved ones of people with sleep apnea often describe listening to their partner sleep as loud snoring, and then it suddenly stops and sounds like the person isn’t breathing at all.

“The brain is going to see that the person is choking so the brain will wake them up,” he said. Frequent sleep disruption at night causes poor functioning during the day, like feeling lousy and tired. Sleep apnea also increases the risk for strokes, heart attacks and hypertension.

It can also cause people to microsleep, which is where a person accidently falls asleep for about 15 seconds, which increases the risk of car accidents.

Zureikat said there’s “definitely” a rise in diagnoses.

Sleep apnea is diagnosed in 5 percent of men over 40, and 2 percent of women over 40. However, Zureikat estimates that approximately 80 percent of the population has sleep apnea but it’s undiagnosed and not treated.

“Currently, physicians are not really very well trained for sleep disorders,” he said, adding that awareness is rising and more physicians are learning.

There’s an increase of sleep apnea with age. Approximately 15 percent of postmenopausal women are diagnosed with sleep apnea.

There are two types of testing. One is in-lab testing, where candidates will sleep in the clinic while monitored. The second is home sleep testing. The patient will take home a certain device and sleep with it at night. They bring it back to the clinic and doctors will learn if they have sleep apnea and what’s causing it.

Zureikat said this helps them design the type of remedy someone needs. For example, sleep apnea could be caused by someone sleeping on their back, and the easy fix is to sleep on their side.

Another option is a CPAP is a machine, that someone wears on their face. It blows air into their throat to open their airway.

There are dental devices worn on the upper and lower teeth that pull the jaw forward to create more room for the airway. If necessary, surgery could also fix the problem.