What Else Can We Do for Sleep Apnea?

Following up on my recent post about the decidedly mixed benefits of the CPAP machine, I thought I would review exactly why these issues are so important, and to whom.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a dangerous disorder that is strongly correlated with heart incidents, mood instability, and diabetes. It seems that every month or so a new study adds further risk factors to this profile, solidifying the place of sleep apnea near the highest bracket of many respiratory risks:

Long term complications of sleep apnea include diabetes, as sleeping properly for less than 4 hours a night causes dangerous drops in your ability to process glucose (sugar) and requires your body to produce 30% more insulin than a normal sleeper. Sleep apnea is also linked to atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure, heart attacks and sudden death.

CPAP machines have long been widely considered the cure for obstructive sleep apnea. Positive pressure reduces the number of breathing interruptions that users experience, mitigating some of the most damaging “gasping” incidents which put a tremendous strain on the heart.

But if CPAPs don’t prevent heart attack and stroke, how else might we treat obstructive sleep apnea? I submit that in some cases, surgical interventions including septoplasty, turbinate reduction, and even balloon sinuplasty could help significantly without the need for a noisy machine at your bedside.

To earn more about the most effective surgical treatments for sleep apnea in Los Angeles, contact the Los Angeles Sinus Institute here.