Sleep disorders

Everyone snores occasionally. However, persistent snoring can be a symptom of a more serious problem known as sleep apnea. Sleep apnea causes interruptions in breathing during sleep, waking you up frequently throughout the night. This can lead to fatigue during the day. If left untreated, it also has the potential to cause shortness of breath, chest pain and high blood pressure. These can lead to life-threatening health problems, such as heart disease or risk of stroke.

Insomnia is characterized by an inability to sleep and/or remain asleep for a reasonable period of time. Insomniacs typically complain of being unable to close their eyes or "rest their minds" for more than a few minutes at a time. Finding the underlying cause of insomnia is usually necessary to cure it.

Symptoms may include:

• Depression or stress
• Disturbing thoughts while trying to sleep
• Lying awake for more than half an hour before falling asleep
• Waking during the night and going back to sleep with difficulty

Narcolepsy is a condition marked by an uncontrollable desire for sleep or sudden attacks of weakness occurring during moments of strong emotions. Related symptoms and warning signs include:

• A feeling of going limp when angry or surprised
• Cataplexy
• Disturbed or fragmented sleep
• Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS)
• Paralysis when falling asleep or waking up
• Vivid nightmares or hallucinations when falling asleep or waking up

PLMs and restless legs syndrome are marked by involuntary muscle contractions of the legs or arms during sleep. Symptoms may include:

• Crawling sensations in legs
• Daytime sleepiness
• Kicking at night
• Muscle tension in legs

Parasomnias are disorders that cause a disruption during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep or non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. The most common examples of parasomnias include:

• Bedwetting
• Movement disorder
• Severe nightmares
• Sleep terrors
• Sleepwalking or sleep talking
• Stress and depression
• Teeth grinding
• Tremors

To diagnose sleep conditions, we offer overnight sleep studies. During your sleep study, you will spend the night in a private room. Before you go to sleep, your registered technologist will attach monitoring devices to track your brainwaves, heart rate, oxygen levels and REMs. The next morning, the technologist will remove the monitoring devices, and you will be able to resume your daily activities.

After your sleep study

After your overnight stay, we will score your sleep study and your sleep disorders physician will analyze the results. You will typically receive your results within 10 business days. Based on your results, your physician will determine the best method of treatment. This may include learning to sleep in a different position, losing weight or wearing a mouthpiece at night. Other treatments may include medication, wearing a nasal mask at night or surgery.

To learn more about our sleep disorder services, please call (512) 341-6166.