Sleep Apnea and Narcolepsy

Sleep Apnea and Narcolepsy

Getting a good night’s sleep is important to maintaining your health. If you consistently have poor sleeping habits, you are likely to become run down, feel ill and possibly develop health issues. If you have trouble sleeping at night, or have inconsistent sleeping patterns, you may have a sleeping disorder. Two very serious sleeping disorders are sleep apnea and narcolepsy. Keep reading to learn more about these disorders.

Sleep Apnea

This disorder can be dangerous as breathing will stop and start suddenly and without warning. This often causes disruption in your sleep schedule as you can be startled awake. Common signs that you suffer from sleep apnea are loud snoring, periods of time when you stop breathing, gasping for breath, waking up with a headache, waking up with a dry mouth, issues falling or staying asleep, drowsiness during the day and having difficulty concentrating during the day. Sleep apnea occurs in three different forms. Obstructive sleep apnea happens when the throat muscles become slack. This causes the airways to become narrow or close which does not allow for sufficient air, causing you to gasp for air. At this point, you will wake up. This same pattern can happen several times throughout the night. Central sleep apnea happens when the brain fails to send messages to muscles that control your breathing. The final type of apnea is a mixture of obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea.

Narcolepsy

This disorder causes constant sleepiness, muscle weakness, hallucinations and sleep paralysis. The symptoms develop slowly, but can last for a lifetime. Although it can cause major disruptions to your life, narcolepsy is manageable. Like sleep apnea, there are different types of narcolepsy known as narcolepsy with cataplexy and narcolepsy without cataplexy. Those with narcolepsy with cataplexy will experience weakness of the muscles that is caused by great emotions. Those who have narcolepsy without cataplexy will also become drowsy during the day and can have minor muscle weakness but will not have as severe symptoms. Sleep is disrupted for those with this disorder, as it can be difficult for the individual to decipher sleeping from being awake. As a result, their sleeping patterns are thrown off.

If you are experiencing symptoms of either sleep apnea or narcolepsy, do not hesitate to reach out for help. These sleep disorders can be serious, leading to damaging health conditions. If you want more information on sleep disorders, visit us at Reliable MD. If you liked this article, please check us out on Facebook.