Sleep apnea

2023 - 4 - 3

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Image courtesy of "Chattanooga Times Free Press"

New surgery for sleep apnea now available in Chattanooga ... (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

James Southwick was 26 years old the first time he recalls someone suggesting he had sleep apnea — a common and potentially life-threatening condition where ...

"If somebody has sleep apnea and they don't have the information or don't know about it, they're missing out on so much life." "I would definitely recommend for anyone who has sleep apnea to, at very least, get on a CPAP," he said. "Nothing worked," Spangler said, adding that she just gave up until a friend of hers died from complications due to sleep apnea. People get to go home the same day as the outpatient surgery and typically have little to no pain, Chandra said. He's in the general tuning phase now — his doctors want to see him have less than 20 episodes, or instances when he stops breathing while sleeping, in an hour. Until recently, Chandra had to send Inspire patients to Nashville to have the surgery because no local hospitals offered it. When he first started using his CPAP machine, Southwick's fatigue and blood pressure improved. "Every single day in my clinic, I have at least one if not two people searching to become an Inspire candidate. Anuj Chandra said that while CPAPs are life-changing for those who can use them, only about 30-40% of people with sleep apnea are able to adjust to the machines. Untreated sleep apnea can lead to a host of serious health issues, including stroke, cognitive decline, heart attacks, heart failure, irregular heart rhythm, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes and sudden cardiac death. Though the problem persisted, Southwick said he didn't think much about it until years later when, despite being otherwise healthy, he constantly felt tired and his blood pressure skyrocketed. "I was like, 'Well, feel free to hit me if you think I'm dead or whatever.'"

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Image courtesy of "ScienceAlert"

There's Something Different in The Brains of Teens With Sleep Apnea (ScienceAlert)

Interruptions to breathing during sleep may cause parts of the adolescent brain critical to learning and memory to become thin or inflamed, according to a ...

Children with sleep apnea can experience tiredness, headaches, loss of appetite, or blocked noses during the day. [In experiments](https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpcell.00298.2009) where rodents were intermittently deprived of oxygen, cell death in the brain also caused a thinning of the cortex. [Sleep](https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article-abstract/46/3/zsac201/6675662). This was probably caused by swelling and inflammation in the brain, the researchers [Hypoxia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_(medical)), where the body and brain are deprived of oxygen, can cause broken sleep, learning, attention and memory issues, and behavioral problems such as hyperactivity. The more severe the sleep apnea symptoms, the thinner this region of the brain appeared. A thinning of this area is likely to impact the cognitive development of teens, the researchers [write](https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article-abstract/46/3/zsac201/6675662). [20 percent of children snore](https://www.rch.org.au/kidsinfo/fact_sheets/Childhood_obstructive_sleep_apnoea_OSA/), only [1 to 6 percent of adolescent children](https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article-abstract/46/3/zsac201/6675662) have sleep apnea or other sleep-related breathing disorders. [most common](https://www.rch.org.au/kidsinfo/fact_sheets/Childhood_obstructive_sleep_apnoea_OSA/) cause of sleep apnea in children, and having these removed can help symptoms. [ADHD](https://www.sciencealert.com/what-is-adhd)), and may be associated with [autism spectrum disorder](https://www.sciencealert.com/autism-spectrum-disorder). [study](https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article-abstract/46/3/zsac201/6675662) carried out on US teenagers.

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Image courtesy of "Daily Citizen"

Oral appliance therapy for sleep apnea sees great results in Dalton (Daily Citizen)

Obstructive sleep apnea is a medical condition that affects almost 18 million Americans and can lead to many long-term health effects on the body, ...

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