January 2018

Why Sleep Apnea Patients Should Stay Away from Dust Mites

Mouthpiece For Sleep Apnea

Sleep Apnea And Dust Mites

If your surroundings at bedroom have dust particles, which are invisible, it may aggravate asthma or snoring. That is because the particles enter the lungs through the respiratory tract or to the sinuses through nasal airways, thus triggering breathing difficulties. That is why you may need to consider using air purifiers for filtering particles and airborne dirt so that nighttime breathing becomes relatively easier to you. In fact, doing this is a good hygiene practice, which will lessen snoring and bring about a peaceful sleep.

The purifier’s design will also eventually determine the particle size it can filter from the air. For instance, an air purifier featuring a paper filter would filter the large particles from the atmosphere, but if you have allergies or are living with someone who smokes, consider choosing one featuring a HEPA filter to trap minuscule particles.

Even if you are living in an atmosphere free of smoke, you might still come across pollutants in the air. Thus, it is important to keep the surroundings at home free of dust particles to prevent snoring due to allergies altogether. In addition to that, if smoke or pollen exists at home it might collect plenty of germs and dust which may potentially aggravate respiratory conditions.

House dust mites cause blockages in the respiratory tract. Moreover, the majority of people suffering from hay fever stay allergic to dust mites at home while a few stay allergic to pet danders. Therefore, inhaling dust mite can be dangerous for those having allergies and can worsen the asthma symptoms often referred to as ‘asthma attacks’.

This happens due to mucus tightening up around the airways even as other symptoms of asthma including sneezing, cough and postnasal drip may also worsen. Dust mites at home can be the underlying cause of a runny nose occurring throughout a year in an asthma patient. Stuffy nose can also worsen apnea and snoring and thereby aggravate the asthma symptoms.

However, if you use precautionary measures such as air purifiers, you can reduce the microscopic dirt in the surrounding air and maintain an adequate air quality for better breathing. Reducing the air pollution will lessen the allergy symptoms making breathing at all the more easy to you. Besides that, reducing the swelling of nasal passageway and the stuffy nose caused by the airborne allergies can potentially affect how your snoring lessens.

Snoring in Kids Can be a Sign of Serious Sleep Disorders

Sleep Apnea Mouth Guard

Sleep Disorders In Kids

Snoring is one of the most common sleep disorders in children and it affects more than a million kids every year. It is true that most of the kids snore, but that can happen often and more loudly in some children. So if your kid is an frequent snorer, then you should take him to a health care provider and implement necessary precautionary steps to stop your kid’s snoring.

The health care provider will advise your kid to make a few lifestyle changes and to cut down dairy products from his/her diet. If that does not work, then you will need to buy a sleep apnea mouth guard for your child. These comfortable snoring aids are highly effective, comfortable, and they can help your kid to cut down or even stop snoring within a few weeks’ of regular usage.

The Severity of Snoring in Children

Several parents have a misconception that the snoring issues of their child will get resolved on its own with time. The reality is that snoring and other sleep disorders can bring severe health disorders to your kid. Results obtained from recent studies indicate that childhood snoring can be a sign of a serious health disorder.

ENT specialist, Dr. Micahel Latshaw says that, “Kids that don’t get good quality sleep are more likely to exhibit symptoms of hyperactivity. Studies have shown recently that a lot of kids are misdiagnosed with ADHD and ADD when really it comes down to they’re not getting the right sleep that they need.”

As per Dr. Latshaw, if parents are experiencing “difficulty waking them up in the morning, or teachers saying, ‘well, he’s falling asleep’ or, ‘he’s just tough to reign in’, if their grades are falling off, or if there’s symptoms of hyperactivity and just inability to focus,” then there is a good chance that your kid is struggling with snoring or other sleep-related issues.

Dr. Latshaw also added that the surgical removal of tonsils might fix the issue in most kids. However, he also stated that the treatments might vary based on the patient. “Sometimes it can be as simple as a steroid nasal spray to help open up the nose or treatment of allergies in another way,” he said. “In some cases, children outgrow their sleep apnea. As their faces and their bodies grow, the airway opens up, and they stop snoring.”

What you need to know about Snoring in Pregnant Women

Snoring Devices

Snoring In Pregnant Women

Pregnancy is an important period involving happiness and disconcertion for women over the course of around 40 weeks. Women should take care of the baby during each trimester while also try to maintain self-health since the child also undergoes a physical transformation during the stage. Henceforth, it is quite essential for women to get adequate rest during the pregnancy period.

However, they would face issues such as muscle pain, overnight fatigue, heartburn, and metamorphosis, which might affect their sleeping pattern or prevent them from getting adequate sleep. In the starting trimester of pregnancy, women tend to feel excessive jadedness due to the increased production of the hormone ‘progesterone’.

In addition, sudden changes in metabolism in women may cause the lethargy, which may even impede sleep. However, in the second trimester of pregnancy, women usually sleep better but snoring occurs in the weeks thereafter. Snoring in pregnant women is attributed to many factors including the below ones:

  • A rise in estrogen hormone levels which swells the mucous membranes. This in turn cause blockages in the nasal airway aside from causing other issues like pigmentations on the skin, and nausea.
  • Pregnancy causes a surge in blood count in order to support the baby’s growth. The rise in volume would cause expansion of the blood vessels. This is bound to occur in the nasal cavity.
  • The physical transformation results in the formation of excess fat around the neck and the throat of pregnant women. This might block the airway and the breathing process. Women facing gestational diabetes are susceptible to sleep apnea too.

That is why a pregnant woman should seek help from their spouse to monitor the sleep patterns and even consult with a sleep specialist to diagnose apnea. The tests of apnea include a home sleep test that comes in handy especially for pregnant women. Usually, apnea is characterized by heavy breathing, which causes cessations and makes patients gasp for breath for a few seconds or more. Mild to moderate apnea with loud snoring is often cured by anti snoring devices like the mouthpiece that advances the lower jaw forward and helps the snorer to reduce or stop snoring.

Since apnea affects the quality of sleep and can even result in serious sleeping disorders. This means that pregnant women who snore should take appropriate treatment and follow doctors’ recommendations on diet. The sleep disorder may cause overnight fatigue, tiredness in the daytime, and affects cognition. Besides, loud snoring during pregnancy may make women prone to preeclampsia, a medical condition characterized by high blood pressure levels.

How to Alleviate Dry Mouth Due to an Open Mouth

Apnea Chin Strap

Problems Due To Snoring

Dry mouth leads to nasal congestions, whereas a dry throat induces a sore throat in an apnea patient. Dry mouth often occurs due to the sleep posture of the patient and the position of the mouth and tongue to be precise. If you sleep slack-jawed with mouth open, chances are that you may wake up with a dry mouth feeling thirsty or gasping for air. That is one of the reasons, why many sleep apnea patients keep a glass of water by the bedside to tackle the symptom. However, waking up frequently for water would disrupt the sleep pattern.

Remedy for Dry Mouth with Apnea Chin Strap

You can use an apnea chin strap to keep the mouth closed throughout the sleep and avoid the chances of dry mouth in the morning. Even if you roll on the bed during sleep, the airtight seal would keep the mouth closed in turn providing a better flow of air and a peaceful sleep.

Improving Tongue Position

Many people abandon CPAP therapy since dry mouth can be caused by air leaks from the oxygen mask worn in Continuous Positive Airway Therapy. Practice how to keep the tongue pressed to the surface of the mouth. Try to seal the lips prior to sleep, make a small suction inside the mouth, and push the tongue forward against the teeth and surface of the mouth. This sleep posture would hold the tongue firmly in position and would help prevent dry mouth during sleep.

Eliminating the Underlying Cause

You should understand why you are breathing through the mouth. It could be due to a blockage in the nasal cavity like congestions or even a deviated septum. If you are experiencing dry throat alongside a stuffy nose, you might need to discuss the same with the sleep specialist. The CPAP therapy may be tough for you especially if you are facing breathing difficulties due to nasal congestion.

Your doctor may suggest you to use a heated humidifier alongside the CPAP mask and recommend keeping the heat settings to a certain level in that case. Oftentimes, the tubing may become condensed but using the humidifier can potentially eliminate that by adding moisture and warmth to the air.