Sleep Apnea

I recall with fondness the years prior to 1989 when I could take for granted my ability to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep for a full eight hours. After a car accident and subsequent surgeries, however, insomnia and its shiftless cousin, fatigue, settled in for an unwelcome stay -- that is, until recently. I had talked with my doctor over the years about this problem.

I recall with fondness the years prior to 1989 when I could take for granted my ability to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep for a full eight hours. After a car accident and subsequent surgeries, however, insomnia and its shiftless cousin, fatigue, settled in for an unwelcome stay -- that is, until recently. I had talked with my doctor over the years about this problem. He offered me sleeping medications -- Ambien, Lunesta, Rozerem, Sonata -- but I happen to be one of those unlucky people who is highly sensitive to most kinds of meds, and these were no exception.

Reggie White's death provided the wake-up call, Kirby Puckett's the confirmation. Former USC running back Anthony Davis said last month that because of sleep- and weight-related health problems similar to those of White, a pro football Hall of Famer who died in 2004 at 43, he decided last year to undergo gastric bypass surgery. The procedure is scheduled for today at a hospital in La Jolla and will be shown live on the Internet.

Some people first suspect they have obstructive sleep apnea when their significant other complains about excessive snoring, or tells them they stop breathing many times during the night. Others figure it out when their daytime sleepiness gets so bad they fall asleep at meetings or have a car accident.

People suffering from sleep apnea aren't just tired -- they also run a higher risk of heart disease. Now researchers have found that long-term use of a breathing device during sleep can dramatically cut this risk. The therapy, known as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), is prescribed to keep the airway open. The condition, which causes the airway to become blocked during sleep, can make sufferers snore or wake up many times a night.

Patients with sleep apnea are more likely to die from heart attacks at night, while sleeping, than in the day, which is the time when everyone else is most vulnerable, researchers have found. Most heart attacks in the United States take place between dawn and noon, but sleep apnea -- marked by a tendency to snore, stop breathing and then startle awake -- changes this pattern, researchers said.

Sleepless nights next to a snoring spouse have spurred many people to send their loved one to the doctor. But patients seeking help for their snores should be careful about the advice they receive. "A substantial number of sleep apnea sufferers are misdiagnosed as [simply] snorers," says Gabriele Barthlen, director of the sleep center at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. Instead, they may have obstructive sleep apnea, which can lead to high blood pressure and heart problems if left untreated.

The behavioral biologist Paul Martin loves sleep. His "Counting Sheep" is a paean to the slumbering world and a jeremiad about why we all need more of it. People who don't sleep enough have bigger bellies, less friendly demeanors and weaker immune systems than people who get Martin's recommended eight hours a night of shut-eye. The sleep-deprived crash their cars more often too.

Children in the U.S. are not getting as much sleep as they may need and television and caffeine may frequently be to blame, a new poll has found. The 1,400-parent survey, conducted by the National Sleep Foundation and released last week, found that sleep deprivation begins in infancy. Children age 3 months to 11 months are sleeping only 12.7 hours a day on average, although the foundation says they need 14 to 15 hours. Toddlers age 1 to 3 are sleeping 11.

Stuttering and a serious form of snoring known as sleep apnea may be linked, and both conditions may be caused by brain damage sustained early in life, U.S. researchers said Monday. A team at UCLA found that nearly 40% of sleep apnea patients it studied also stuttered as children. Sleep apnea is a serious form of snoring in which a patient's breathing actually stops several times a night. It is linked with a high rate of heart death.