Gwinnett Sleep offers comprehensive care for sleep disorders and related conditions by leveraging state-of-the-art technology and physicians/staff that pay attention to patient needs. Both of our Georgia locations are ready to help Atlanta-area residents get the rest they deserve and desire.
During normal sleep, throat muscles relax. Your airway can become blocked if there is too little room inside your throat or too much tissue pressing on the outside of your throat. Blockage halts the movement of air, and the amount of oxygen in your blood drops. The drop in oxygen causes the brain to rouse you from sleep so that you can reopen your airway.
If you suffer from sleep apnea, this cycle may repeat 50 or more times an hour, impairing your ability to reach deep, restful sleep.
You may not remember waking up. However, these arousals lead to sleepiness during ensuring days.
Weight gain may cause a narrowing of your airway. Other causes of sleep apnea are:
It is very important to treat sleep apnea. Untreated sleep apnea can lead to serious, long-term health effects. It may increase your risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks, and sudden death. Effective treatment of sleep apnea may result in normal blood pressure, relief of fatigue, and weight loss.The most common treatment is utilization of a machine that sends pressurized air into your nose and throat at night. How much pressure you need is determined by the sleep study. Your health care provider will carefully supervise your usage of this breathing machine; minor adjustments may need to be made so it works right for you. This treatment is called Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP).
If you have pressure on your throat because of excess fatty tissue in your throat, your health care provider may suggest a
weight-loss program.
It may be hard for you to lose weight because you are extremely tired and lack energy to exercise. Use of the breathing machine may help you rest well enough to initiate diet changes and increase physical activity.
Surgery may be an option if you cannot use the breathing machine regularly and properly. This procedure may include improving the air passage in the nose, removing the tonsils, or moving the back of the tongue forward.
Sleep apnea can be cured if it is caused by a reversible problem such as weight gain; or it can be treated with surgery. For most people, however, sleep apnea will always be a problem, and the CPAP machine will need to be utilized regularly to maintain quality sleep and prevent serious complications of sleep apnea.
The exact cause of RLS is unknown. It tends to run in families. RLS is more common after middle age and occurs more frequently in women. Many people with RLS can recall “growing pains” in their legs during childhood. It may be that a nerve malfunction is involved. RLS has also been linked with alcohol dependence, smoking, too much caffeine (usually from drinking coffee), rheumatoid arthritis, anemia, and diabetes. Some medicines may worsen symptoms.
The diagnosis of RLS is based on your medical history. Your health care provider will examine you and may order blood tests or other tests to check for underlying medical problems, including anemia, rheumatoid arthritis, or diabetes.
Your health care provider can prescribe medicine to relieve the symptoms and improve sleep. Levodopa (Sinemet), a drug usually used for Parkinson’s disease, is often prescribed.
Stress such as a big deadline at work, a financial problem,
Being overweight
Depression, anxiety, or other mental health problems
Medical problems such as sleep apnea or hyperthyroidism
Restless leg syndrome (muscles in your lower legs twitch
Use of caffeine or other stimulants
Use of alcohol, other depressants, or sedatives, which can relax you but lead to shallow sleep that starts and stops, especially if you use these drugs for a long time
Medicines, such as those used to treat asthma
Pain and other discomfort caused by an illness such as
Shortness of breath caused by chronic obstructive
Poor sleep habits, including going to bed at different
times or in a noisy environment, or eating or working in
Changes in sleep patterns because of different work
hours or travel (jet lag).
Your health care provider may also ask your spouse, bed partner, or other family members about your sleep habits. After talking with
you, your health care provider may give you a physical exam. A blood sample may be taken for lab tests.
Your health care provider may ask you to take notes each morning about:
How long you were in bed
How much time you think you actually slept
How many times and what times you woke up
What time you got up in the morning
Your thoughts about the quality of your sleep
Whether anything unusual happened.
When appropriate, your health care provider will prescribe treatment for underlying problems that are causing the insomnia. For
example, if you have depression, medicine used to treat depression should help the insomnia. If drug or alcohol abuse is the cause of
your insomnia, the treatment is to help you to stop using these substances. If you have chronic insomnia, it must be treated with
management of the underlying problem.
In some cases of temporary insomnia, your health care provider may prescribe medicine to help you sleep until the stressful event is
over or resolved. Counseling may also help you deal with psychological problems or reduce stress that may cause or contribute to
your insomnia.
Some sleeping medicine can be addictive. Your health care provider will work with you to choose the right medicine for short-term or
long-term use.
Your health care provider may recommend relaxation techniques, changes in diet, cutting out caffeine, and a healthy lifestyle that
includes exercise. Your provider also will probably discuss good sleep habits and a regular sleep routine.
Often insomnia lasts for just a few nights. If you cannot sleep almost every night for 2 weeks, tell your health care provider. Insomnia
that lasts this long usually continues until the cause is identified and treated.
Parasomnias can occur as a person is falling asleep or at any point in the sleep cycle. If they occur while falling asleep, a person may experience disturbing hallucinations or sleep paralysis (the body is unable to move for several seconds or minutes). Sleep paralysis can be quite frightening, especially when it occurs with hallucinations.
Parasomnias that occur during sleep, such as REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD), often involve vigorous and harmful dream-enacting behaviors. RBD is a brain disorder that usually occurs in men over 50 years of age, but can affect people of any age who are taking certain medications such as antidepressants and people with neurologic disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, narcolepsy or stroke. Other parasomnias that occur during sleep include nightmares and sleep-related groaning, which can be loud and prevent a person’s bed partner or roommate from sleeping.
In addition, there are parasomnias that occur when a person has abrupt, partial awakenings such as confusional arousals,
sleepwalking, sleep terrors, and a sleep-related eating disorder. Sleep-related hallucinations may also occur as a person is waking up.
Family history is likely a factor with parasomnias. Brain disorders may also be responsible, including REM Sleep Behavior Disorder.
Parasomnias may also be triggered by other sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea and various medications.
Parasomnias affect one out of 10 Americans. They occur in people of all ages, but are more common in children. Children are
particularly vulnerable because of brain immaturity. The good news? Parasomnias are not associated with negative health
consequences and disappear as children mature.
Trying to awaken a “parasomniac in action” — especially by shaking or shouting — may trigger an irritable, aggressive
or violent response. Instead, gently redirect the person back to bed by guiding him/her by the elbow, while speaking softly.
Many people who suffer with parasomnias enjoy improvements by adjusting sleep habits. Good sleep habits include keeping a
regular sleep schedule, managing stress, having a relaxing bedtime routine, and getting enough sleep. Also, drug therapies control
symptoms.
A person should seek treatment for parasomnia whenever there is risk for injury. It’s also important to seek treatment if parasomnia
disrupts a person’s own sleep or the sleep of the bed partner/roommate, if there is distress about the symptoms (e.g., nightmares),
or if the frequency is high or escalating. An overnight sleep lab study may be needed.
It is important to keep in mind that no matter how weird, bizarre, or violent, parasomnia behavior is rarely linked to psychiatric
disorders. However, people who suffer from parasomnias may endure ridicule, confusion, and/or shame.
During REM sleep, our muscles are paralyzed and dreaming occurs, so it’s not surprising that narcolepsy is associated with paralysis,
hallucinations, and other dream-like and dramatically debilitating symptoms.
Despite the perception that people with narcolepsy are perpetually sleepy, they do not typically sleep more than the average person.
Narcolepsy is considered a “state boundary” control abnormality. That is, narcolepsy patients sleep a normal amount, but cannot
control the timing of sleep.
Narcolepsy affects both sexes equally and develops with age; symptoms typically develop in adolescence or young adulthood and
may remain unrecognized as they gradually develop. The instance of a familial connection with narcolepsy is quite small, but a
combination of genetic and environmental factors may be at the root of this sleep disorder.
Narcolepsy patients typically endure many years of daytime sleepiness before seeking treatment because to most people,
sleepiness is not indicative of disease. Yet the devastating potential of this disorder is reflected in studies showing narcoleptic
patients are more accident-prone and have difficulty forming or maintaining interpersonal relationships.
Researchers believe that narcolepsy may be caused by a deficiency in hypocretin production in the brain. The results of one recent
study —hypocretin was directly administered to the brain — suggest that hypocretin derivatives may be an effective way to prevent
cataplexy and improve wakefulness.
Stress such as a big deadline at work, a financial problem,
Being overweight
Depression, anxiety, or other mental health problems
Medical problems such as sleep apnea or hyperthyroidism
Restless leg syndrome (muscles in your lower legs twitch
Use of caffeine or other stimulants
Use of alcohol, other depressants, or sedatives, which can
relax you but lead to shallow sleep that starts and stops,
especially if you use these drugs for a long time
Medicines, such as those used to treat asthma
Pain and other discomfort caused by an illness such as
Shortness of breath caused by chronic obstructive
Poor sleep habits, including going to bed at different
times or in a noisy environment, or eating or working in
Changes in sleep patterns because of different work
hours or travel (jet lag).
Jet lag is the fatigue you may feel after flying across several time zones. The rapid travel disturbs your normal body rhythms.
Each person has an internal body clock which determines when sleeping, waking, and hunger occur in a 24-hour period. When you
travel across several time zones, your “day” is longer or shorter than 24 hours. Your body is out of sync with the local time zone.
Your normal body rhythms fails to adjust to this shorter or longer day, resulting in jet lag.
Not all jet lags are the same. Traveling eastward, which shortens your day, is more difficult than flying westward, which lengthens it.
West-to-East Coast trips may require one day of recovery for each time zone crossed. East-to-West Coast journeys may require
one day of recovery for each one and a half time zones crossed. The adjustment can be eased by breaking up a long journey with
a stopover. If you have an important event or meeting to attend at your destination, try to get there 2-3 days early.
What can be done to help prevent jet lag?