Insomnia Tips and Answers

Free Sleep Apnea Testing Useful Info

Sleep apnea is a disorder which induces you to stop breathing while you’re sleeping. While sleep apnea comes in a great many varieties, these in the main don’t cause death but there are certain situations where there may be serious health consequences and expose you to life threatening dangers. it is of great relevance to have a sleep apnea examination if you have an inkling that you’re suffering from this sleep disorder.

There are a number of ways that you can tell if you are suffering from sleep apnea, and many who have sleep apnea also have a number of other symptoms in which sleep apnea is a side effect. Some good examples of this are ,obesity, depression, and chronic fatigue syndrome all may be caused by sleep apnea, and they may even experience dryness in he mouth or may wake up experiencing a panic attack like episode, with choking and gasping.

You may experience insomnia along with your sleep disorder but the best means to determine if your symptoms are induced by sleep apnea is to go to your physician and take a sleep apnea test. It is standard for the test to be administered at a sleep center but can also be done at hospitals and clinics that have overnight facilities and diagnostic equipment.

You’ll need to take a physical exam which is comprised of a physical check on your nose, throat and palate. To better understand your problem there will be an interview with questions showing your sleep quality, sleep patterns and feelings about how well you are sleeping. The very next step in the process is to keep you over night where a recording is done.

The common test to record your sleep patterns is a polysomnogram or PSG, which comes in two varieties. The first type of test is carried out overnight and consists of monitoring several activities including breathing patterns, heart rate, blood oxygen level, eye movement and brain activity.

The second testing type involves a home monitoring version where a skilled technician attaches the proper electrodes and allows the patient to monitor their results at home through a polysomnograph. The result that is being looked for when deciding whether the results of the test are good or bad is a factor called the RDI or respiratory disturbance index.

This method expresses in data form the number of times you experience a negative breathing pattern which occurred in breathing over the course of the test. Following is the common measures used when judging whether or not a person has sleep apnea. If the number of captured events over the period of an hour is higher than twenty then the patient is usually recommended for treatment.

There are some additional examinations which may also be requested including a multiple sleep latency test that determines how much your lack of sleep is effecting you. A normal person requires, on average, more than 10 minutes to fall asleep so those who fall asleep in five minutes are considered good candidates for treatment. There is also a strip test that may be used in front of the sleep apnea exam in order to see of further testing is needed.