What are the signs, symptoms and treatment for sleep apnea?

If you're having difficulty sleeping, there is help available and when you sleep everything improves.

Getting a good night’s sleep is an important part of being healthy, but you can sometimes wake up tired, even if you sleep through the night.

Sleep apnea is a disorder characterized by one’s breathing repeatedly starting and stopping through the night, which could prevent an afflicted individual from getting enough oxygen during sleep.

Cody Allen, director of operations and clinical sleep specialist at Ontario Sleep Care, told CTV Your Morning Ottawa on Monday that snoring is often the first sign something could be wrong.

“The most common thing is snoring. When people start snoring it’s kind of a red flag,” he said.

Not all who snore have sleep apnea, and vice versa, Ontario Sleep Care says, but it is the most common sign. Another thing to watch for is waking up tired all the time or needing naps throughout the day.

“If you’re constantly tired and not able to work throughout your day without having 10 cups of coffee and not making it to dinnertime, that’s a red flag, where you should consult with your family physician to see if you can get a sleep test done, to see if there’s actually an issue there,” Allen says.

Other signs and symptoms include difficulty getting to sleep and staying asleep, and depression related to constant fatigue.

Sleep apnea is more common in men than women, if middle-aged and older adults, and in people who are obese. Smoking and drinking alcohol can also contribute to sleep apnea.

Complications include hypertension, excessive daytime fatigue, metabolic syndrome, weight gain, and headache.

CPAP remains the gold standard

Allen says it may feel strange at first, but if you’re diagnosed with sleep apnea, a CPAP machine is still one of the best solutions.

“A lot of people try to avoid using those because they’re not fun,” he said. “Yes, it’s not fun to wear a mask to sleep, but it does improve your sleep substantially, to the point where you don’t care to wear a mask if you feel like a million bucks the next day.”

Allen says CPAP machines today are also not as obtrusive as they used to be.

“They’ve made a lot of changes over the years. They used to look like little generators, now they look like laptops or ipads. They’re very small, very quiet. The masks are very small and quiet. So, it’s gotten a lot easier for people to wrap their heads around wearing a mask on their face at night,” he said.

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