Common Signs of Sleep Apnea

The next time you visit the dentist, he or she might ask you questions related to your sleep habits. If you are wondering why your dentist cares about this, it is most likely because your dentist offers treatment options for sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a disorder that affects many people, and it can be very dangerous if left untreated. Here are some of the signs that can indicate that you may have sleep apnea.

Snoring

Your dentist may ask you if you snore at night. While you probably never hear yourself snore, your spouse or a friend might tell you all the time that you do. Snoring does not always indicate that you have sleep apnea, but it is one of the most common signs, especially if you snoring includes gasping sounds.

People with sleep apnea typically snore a lot and very loudly. This occurs because the tissue in the back of the throat relaxes and vibrates together while the person sleeps. If the tissue relaxes too much, it can close the airway in the throat, and this causes problems with breathing.

Tiredness

A second sign of sleep apnea is feeling tired all the time. Feeling tired all the time can be the result of many health problems and other types of issues in life, but it is almost always present in a person with untreated sleep apnea.

People feel tired from sleep apnea because they never really get a good night's sleep. Sleep apnea causes them to wake up multiple times each night, and this disrupts a person's sleeping. A person with sleep apnea may not even realize this is happening, because the times it occurs do not wake the person up enough to realize they are awake. They do wake the person up enough to disrupt the person's sleep, though, and this will leave a person feeling tired a lot.

Headaches

One other common sign of sleep apnea is frequent headaches. When you have this condition, it causes you to stop breathing while you sleep. Each time this happens, oxygen is cut off to your brain, which means your brain in not receiving the oxygen it needs. When this happens, it can lead to headaches.

These are just some of the signs of sleep apnea, but there are others. There are also a lot of potential health risks you may develop if you leave this condition untreated. If you have questions or suspect you may have this, talk to services such as Jerry C Hu DDS Family Dentistry LLC.


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