Medications are commonly not an effective tool in the treatment of sleep apnea. A detailed treatment for sleep apnea is customized for a specific patient based on his or her medical history, physical examination, and following the results of polysomnography. Administering oxygen will carefully benefit certain individuals who have this problem but it does not totally eliminate sleep apnea or prevent any daytime sleepiness. Thus, the effectivity of oxygen in the treatment of sleep apnea is still controversial, and it’s even harder to predict which individual can respond well to the treatment. It is clearly significant that the effectiveness of the chosen treatment must be confirmed.
Lifestyle changes are a big factor in treating sleep apnea, the following guidelines are proven effective as well in the treatment of sleep apnea.
Losing weight. It is believed that if you lose weight, it can dramatically reduce the times or hours that you experience any or difficulty breathing while asleep. And with that, experts now agree that weight loss should be part of treating sleep apnea. Nutritional counseling may help for those overweight individuals that has sleep apnea,
Avoid alcoholic drinks and MEDs. An overly excessive drinking of alcohol or taking enormous medicines especially sleeping pills and sedatives can make the symptoms worse than ever.
Sleep a lot. Periods of non-breathing or apnea while asleep happens more frequently when you lack an adequate amount of sleep.
Stop smoking from now on. It can relax the airways and become open due to its nicotine content. If you are a non-smoker individual, the muscles in your throat are less likely to collide or collapse with each other at night time that will narrow the airways.
Changes in sleeping routine are also effective, here are the following guideline.
Sleep on your side. Lying on the side will help prevent sleep apnea due to its position. Try to put something heavy or hard in your back so that every time you move towards lying on your back, it will then awaken you that you need to lie only on sideways. Sleeping on your side may eliminate mild sleep apnea.
Use your CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine every night. It may help you to breathe if you will use a CPAP machine every night. Using it every night will keep you from having sleep apnea during sleeping hours, but if you stop using it, your problem with sleep apnea will return immediately.
Treatment for children with sleep apnea
Children have the same treatment options with adults. But surgery like removing tonsils and adenoids are always the first option because an enlarged tonsil is an indication of sleep apnea in most of the children. If the surgery doesn’t work or not allowed, then CPAP is a good alternative treatment.
Other treatment or procedures for sleep apnea that is performed is a surgery if there is a deformity in their lower jaw. Finally, the surgical procedure to treat obese individuals are sometimes suggested as well for sleep apnea patients who are morbidly overweight.
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