Millions of people snore. However, a certain number of those millions of people are actually suffering harm to their health every night they spend snoring. That’s because the root cause of their snoring can actually be sleep apnea which is causing stress and poor function all night long.
What is sleep apnea? It’s a sleep disorder in which a person’s breathing stops and restarts repeatedly. When the breathing stops, the oxygen levels in the person’s blood begin to drop quickly. While still asleep, the person begins to struggle to breathe. Finally, the body may choke and gasp and the sleeper will partially wake up. They’ll take a deep breath or two and fall back into sleep, only to repeat the process seconds or minutes later. It’s impossible to get a good night’s sleep when this is happening all night.
The gasping, choking struggle to breathe is the most severe manifestation of sleep apnea. Other individuals may not show such a severe struggle. The evidence that sleep apnea treatment is needed is a measurement of the person’s oxygen levels during sleep. Using a nighttime monitoring device, it can be determined how often and how seriously the person’s oxygen levels fall during sleep. Depending on how many times they fall per hour, the person’s level of sleep apnea can be diagnosed and the right treatment can be recommended.