Reasons Why You Should Treat Your Sleep Apnea As Quickly As Possible
Did you know? Obstructive sleep apnea is actually a fairly common form of sleep disorder. In fact, estimations say that approximately 20 million individuals in the United States suffer from this disorder. Although fairly common, many people remain undiagnosed for the disorder. This may be because they have only mild symptoms and do not recognize it as a sleep disorder. Read on to find out what serious consequences sleep apnea can have on your life.
Sleep Better at Night
One of the most obvious and common symptom of sleep apnea is restless sleep. When you have sleep apnea, oxygen is blocked by tissues in the upper respiratory system, which prevents it from reaching the lungs. This causes people with sleep apnea to wake up during sleep at night and find themselves wide awake and thus result in poor qualities of sleep at night. Getting your sleep apnea treated means that you can finally have your good sleep again.
Feel Awake Throughout the Day
With disturbed rest and poor qualities of sleep at night, your energy levels during the day are bound to be affected. Since the brain is constantly awake at night, it is not spending time in deep stages of sleep where it repairs the body, improve cognitive functions and store memories. Since the brain never gets to complete its work at night, people with sleep apnea do not feel well rested the day after.
When you get your sleep apnea treated, your brain can perform the nightly maintenance work it is supposed to and do its nightly maintenance at night. As such, you can finally feel awake and lively during daytime.
Better Performance
Whether you are working or schooling, focus is important in ensuring that you perform well. Sleep deprivation is commonly associated with many problems such as lack of concentration, attention lapses and sometimes even memory retention issues. With insufficient sleep, your brain takes a longer time to process information. Sleep troubles hence spill over into your daily life and cause you to be more likely to make unforced errors.
Long Term Health
Untreated sleep apnea has been known to be correlated to various medical problems and illnesses. These include a higher likelihood of increased blood pressure, stroke, heart failure, heart disease, diabetes and even cancer. Sleep apnea causes an increase in higher blood pressure levels at night as the brain cannot get its oxygen to the body as it is supposed to. When there is not enough oxygen, the body reacts by pumping blood faster and harder to keep things running, constricting blood flow. This is similar to what happens to people that smoke regularly, lower oxygen levels translating to higher blood pressure.
One shocking study found that those with severe sleep apnea are four times a likely to have a stroke, die, and three times as likely to die from cancer. As such, it is important for those who have any form of sleep apnea to take steps to get it treated. One simple way people can start to track and monitor oxygen levels is through spot-checking with the use of a fingertip pulse oximeter from LOOKEE® Tech. The LOOKEE® Tech fingertip pulse oximeter is FDA approved and even features a large OLED screen for easy reading purposes.
Should you have any concerns or questions about pulse oximeters and perfusion index, feel free to contact us today!