What does Untreated Sleep Apnea do to you?

What does Untreated Sleep Apnea do to you?

Here is how I understand it; Simply put, there are 2 big problems that untreated sleep apnea causes:

1. Low Oxygen levels cause harm to your body.
2. Internal organ self-repair that normally occurs during certain stages of sleep, does not occur due to continued interruption of your sleep cycle.

This is why we need treatment. To keep our O2 levels up, and to remain asleep so our body can heal itself nightly.

I assume this is why untreated Apnea causes increased heart failure: organ damage due to low O2 levels and little or no nightly organ healing.

Please share what you know about this; or correct me if I'm mistaken.

It is a bit more complex than that but that is the basic issue.

The chronic hypoxia induces and/or contributes to disregulated hormone levels which then lead to degeneration of health from several aspects.

On a more immediate level, it made me tired all the time, unable to focus at work, and generally unpleasant to be around. Getting on the CPAP machine has been like a cloud lifting.

mdboze wrote:What does Untreated Sleep Apnea do to you? . . .

Here are what could be considered the top three, as far as moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea:

1. Serious, often fatal, accidents from excessive daytime sleepiness
2. Cardiovascular disease--including, but not limited to, hypertension (systemic & pulmonary), renal disease, stroke, myocardial infarction, sudden death during sleep
3. Decreased attention, concentration, and memory

Sleep is important. Breathing is important. Anything that affects those two things will have a profound effect on the life of any human being, since they are both vital to a human's continued existence and enjoyment of that existence.

Let's not also forget there is increasing evidence that sleep deprivation from sleep disordered breathing leads to:

• Weight Gain
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Complications from hypertension and Type 2 Diabetes

Of course, as jnk note, some of the complications are also the cardiovascular risks of heart attacks and stroke.

Yes, I had weight gain and came into the world of Type II diabetes from going untreated (and unknowledgable) about sleep apnea for 7 years. My poor dad dropped dead suddenly at home of either a massive stroke or heart attack because he had severe sleep apnea, couldn't wear his mask because it fel too claustrophobic for him. Had he only looked into the newer equpiment that was out there in 2008, he might still be with us. So, it IS important that everyone who has sleep apnea be treated for it. As with my dad, our very lives may depend on it!
Your friend,

Jersey Girl

Don't forget the brain damage.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/uc ... 51534.aspx

http://www.physorg.com/news163245364.html

http://doctorstevenpark.com/sleep-apnea ... rs-disease

The brain only needs oxygen if we want it to do minor things like thinking and telling our heart to beat and various inconsequential things like that.

Well being that I am so new to all of this, just got my machine on the 19 of this month so it's
not hard at alll for me to remember what it was like, and still is a little, but getting better.

I totally was not able to do anything at all. I would sleep for day's, wake up after sleeping 10
hours, and sit in my chair, and could not for the life of me stay awake! I felt like a junkie
who had just gotten high, and would just nod out. Or I would wake up, and not even get
that far, and have to go lay back down in bed, and then would sleep for a few days, only
waking up a few times to go to the bathroom.

I did not eat, drink water or do anything at all, I couldn't function. I also was so anxiuos, and
just felt like I was going insane, or had, but was fully aware of being insane.

I only existed in life, nothing more. I had told my doc's, they just blew me off, but I finally
had just had it, and told my one doc just that.

I finally had the sleep study done, and found out I had I had Central Apnea, Obstructive, and
was also hypoapnea.


Don't second guess yourself, just get it checked out! It is a seriuos condition, and not getting oxygen to your brain can
cause strokes, heart attacks, confusion, memory problems, anxiety, depression.

Like when you get on a plane, and they tell you to put the oxygen on yourself before you do you child? That should tell us
something about no O2 to the brain, can't function properly!

Debbie

Untreated Sleep Apnea can do for YOU what it did for Reggie White (the former professional football player)......and many others who chose to ignore the treatment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggie_White

http://www.reggiewhitesleepdisordersfoundation.org/


Den

mdboze wrote: Here is how I understand it; Simply put, there are 2 big problems that untreated sleep apnea causes:

...2. Internal organ self-repair that normally occurs during certain stages of sleep, does not occur due to continued interruption of your sleep cycle.

I'm not saying that it doesn't cause #2, but am curious if anyone has medical articles that support that interruptions in sleep cause any negative consequences besides sleepiness and difficulties with cognition due to sleepiness. Logically, this probably means that the sample studied must be those who do not desaturate, otherwise we wouldn't know whether the negative sequaela are due to the desaturations or the fragmented sleep.

http://www.journals.elsevierhealth.com/ ... 0/abstract
"Previous medical literature has shown that cell injury from hypoxia, such as that induced by sleep apnea, leads to hyperuricemia. Furthermore, a recent study has shown that when hyperuricemia reaches sufficient concentration to precipitate as monosodium urate, a T-cell immune response is triggered. The frequent repetition of this cell injury and immune response over a prolonged time, as would occur with long-term sleep apnea, may lead to the development, continuation, or aggravation of autoimmune disease."

I don't know how long I had untreated sleep apnea, but I think it was too long. I've been on cpap for 4 months now. I am 56 and I weigh 128. I have High Blood Pressure, Tachycardia, GERD, Diabetes type 2, Rosacea, IBS, Raynaud's Phenomenon----and in the past few months I've been diagnosed with systemic Sjogren's Syndrome. I finally see a rheumatologist in April for treatment of the Sjogren's (SjS). I think I've had it for at least 5 years. It causes the body to attack and destroy the exocrine glands. I can't make tears anymore. I use artificial eye drops 24/7, otherwise my eyes stick to the eyelids. I am losing the ability to produce saliva and must use a mouth spray all day and through the night. It causes swelling of the parotid glands and increases the chance of developing a lymphoma. Systemic Sjogren's also affect the CNS system in ways that mimic multiple sclerosis, causing chronic fatigue, muscle pain, dizziness, weakness, loss of balance, numbness, and brain fog (which can include amnesia at times). And the list goes on. On bad days I hold onto the walls when I walk and hope nobody thinks I'm drunk.

If I had been on cpap 15 years ago, I might not have Sjogren's Syndrome today.

SleepingUgly wrote:

mdboze wrote: Here is how I understand it; Simply put, there are 2 big problems that untreated sleep apnea causes:

...2. Internal organ self-repair that normally occurs during certain stages of sleep, does not occur due to continued interruption of your sleep cycle.

I'm not saying that it doesn't cause #2, but am curious if anyone has medical articles that support that interruptions in sleep cause any negative consequences besides sleepiness and difficulties with cognition due to sleepiness. Logically, this probably means that the sample studied must be those who do not desaturate, otherwise we wouldn't know whether the negative sequaela are due to the desaturations or the fragmented sleep.

Some of the physical consequences of microarousals that have been studied: http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cg ... t/66/6/925

The fragmentation, as you mention, may have specific cognitive effects too, as mentioned in Primary Psychiatry. 2009;16(10):51-56:

"The absence of evidence of hypoxic damage in some MRI studies suggests that hypoxia may not be solely responsible for the cognitive pathologies associated with OSA, leading some investigators to propose that sleepiness may be the primary cause of neurocognitive deficits in these patients. . . . It may be that the multiple etiologies of neurologic dysfunction in patients with OSA are inextricably intertwined."--"Proposed Mechanisms of Cognitive Dysfunction in Obstructive Sleep Apnea," Christopher Knoepke, MSW, and Mark Aloia PhD, CBSM.

All of that is not to mention how that the sleepiness itself is often the most dangerous effect of OSA, since it can lead to sudden death in the dangerous world in which we live.

Personally, I don't need science to prove to me that good sleep is important. But I'm glad the research is being done to show some of the specifics as to why it is.

Great question, SleepingUgly!

jeff

mdboze wrote:correct me if I'm mistaken.

There are growing numbers of correlations being discovered between Sleep Disordered Breathing (SDB) and wide range of other ailments. The correlations are sometimes fairly direct, and sometime quite indirect, but are none the less significant.

SDB in itself is often a less significant health issue than the other ailments it contributes too. There are many reports here of users who start treatment for an SDB and find that they experience very significant improvements (and sometimed complete cure) of other chronic ailments they are suffering from.... often including things they were barely aware of until they ceased impacting them

The bottom line here is that trying to pick what are the big problems is not particularly useful, as it reflects a simplistic view of what is an incerasingly complex set of relationships between medical conditions.

Cheers,

Bill

mdboze wrote:What does Untreated Sleep Apnea do to you?


2. Internal organ self-repair that normally occurs during certain stages of sleep, does not occur due to continued interruption of your sleep cycle.

The problem with cpap treatment is that I cannot have 8 hour of continuous sleep with the mask. I have been always light sleep (noise wise), the slightness noise wake me up, hence the leaks wakes me up. I am not talking a big leak, even the ones the CPAP machine considers normal, it wakes me up. So one of the purposes for the treatment is not working for me.

I have posted before that my sleepiness came from hypothyroid mostly, even if I have 10 hours cpap sleep, but my hypo is not treated well, then I am sleepy, I know cpap therapy is just not sleeplessness treatment, it has more behind it, like oxygen, and everything else expressed here.

Should we expect more from this mask manufacturers, I think the design has a flaw when you have a stiff plastic material, hoping it does not move when you are asleep. I know you have to find the right mask, but after hundreds of dollars expend, I will never find a mask that I can sleep 8 hours without waking up. Nasal pillows work better for me but still they can easily dislodged from the nose and I have a leak.

If you see everyday there is a new post about how to solve the leaks, that tells me that is the weakest link of the whole system. I see that as sleep apnea unwillingly untreated.

Something that has fixed the sleep apena is my chronic heartburn or GERD, it took almost 3 months, but I didn't have to take Omeprazolle every night for 2 weeks and I am eating spicy food. So that's excellent.