What is Sleep Apnea, the CPAP Mask(s) Apnea Treatment and All That Snoring About

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 million Americans have sleep apnea. Its most common signs are loud snoring, choking or gasping for air while sleeping.

When you have sleep apnea, a common very serious disorder, your breathing stops or gets very shallow. These breathing pauses last 10 to 20 seconds or more, and may occur 20 to 30 times or more an hour.

What happens is that not enough air flows into your lungs, via your mouth and nose, even though you try to breathe. This event drops the level of oxygen in your blood. And in response you snort and choke as your normal breathing pattern starts up again.

If you are experiencing apnea episodes throughout the night, your body is going from deep sleep into light sleep, which results in poor sleep quality, thus tiredness during your day.

Sleep apnea happens more often in people who are overweight. And most don’t know they have sleep apnea, but their bed partner surely does.

Treatment is designed to restore regular breathing while you sleep. If you have mild sleep apnea, some changes in your lifestyle may be all that’s necessary:

These all make it harder for your throat to stay open.

Wearing a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) mask during sleep is the most common treatment for moderate to severe forms of sleep apnea. These masks blow air into your throat at a pressure level that keeps your throat open while you sleep.

Treating sleep apnea may help you stop snoring, but no snoring does not mean that you no longer have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea will return if you quit the CPAP mask treatment or if you don’t use the mask correctly.

You may experience side effects of CPAP mask treatment, such as:

If you have severe sleep apnea, you will feel much better right away using the CPAP mask treatment method.

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