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Many of you reading this may be familiar with disruptive sleep habits, night after night. You may think snoring is the culprit but there can be a deeper-rooted problem that’s causing you to have sleep apnea. Some of you might take the diagnosis lightly, but in more severe cases, it can be dangerous to your health if left untreated.
Throughout the month of February on Healthbeat 4, Jessica Bowman will walk you through the steps to a better night’s rest. From sleep apnea symptoms, to sleep disorder testing, and options to get it treated. “If they are having increased fatigue through the day, they just don’t feel like they are getting sleep through the night. They feel like they sleep a good eight hours, but they wake up tired,” said Family Medicine Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner Tonya Flaugh. You may be showing signs of sleep apnea.
“They wake up with headaches, that’s very common as well. Sometimes they will wake up in the middle of the night because they are snoring so bad they will startle themselves awake,” said Flaugh. Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that causes your breathing to be interrupted repeatedly while you sleep. “Those are some of the key symptoms. If they are in the car for like an hour and they nod off, that is another indication they are not getting good rest and they need to look into that further and see why,” said Flaugh. If you feel symptomatic Flaugh says the first step in the process of determining if you actually have the sleep disorder is quick and easy. Call your local primary care provider and set up an appointment. Some area clinics even offer walk-in availability. “Then that provider can do some assessments,” said Flaugh.
A series of questions will help determine if you need to proceed with clinical care. “They can do an evaluation as far as their neck girth. How big their neck is, whether they are overweight and ask them some questions as far as what is making them feel like they have sleep apnea,” said Flaugh. A normal neck size is about 16 inches around. “People that have larger necks have more mass in there that can constrict your airway. So, if you have a larger neck, you have more of a predisposition to have sleep apnea,” said Flaugh.
After your primary care provider wraps up a series of questions, during that first office visit, they can able to determine right then if your condition needs to be clinically tested. “At that time, they will say, okay, let’s do a sleep study. There are different ways you can do a sleep study. You can do a home sleep study, or you can do a sleep study within the sleep lab,” said Flaugh. You have options. Once you and your provider discuss which test best suits you, your office visit is over and the first step to a better night’s rest is behind you. From here, the primary care provider will order the test from the area sleep lab. That’s when you will be connected to sleep lab technicians for further directions.
Next week on Healthbeat 4, we take you inside the sleep lab. KTIV cameras will show you what the at-home test looks like and what actually happens during an overnight sleep study.