Knowing what a serious condition sleep apnea is, a lot of people wonder whether the difficulty in breathing involved could cause death.
Can you suffocate from sleep apnea? You cannot suffocate from sleep apnea because the human body prevents this from happening. Your body is programmed to wake you up when it senses that the body is not getting enough oxygen.
As you read further, you’ll understand what happens to the body of someone who has sleep apnea. You’ll also learn about the death risks for people who have sleep apnea, as well as other factors that could contribute to the shortened life span of people who have this sleeping disorder.
Why You Can’t Suffocate from Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea is characterized by breathing disturbances that happen while you sleep. These disturbances can range from small obstructions that make breathing difficult, to lapses in the brain’s communication with the parts of your body in charge of your breathing.
These different disturbances allow doctors and sleep specialists to determine what kind of sleep apnea you have:
- Obstructive sleep apnea is caused by tissues around your tongue and throat collapsing against your upper airways, blocking the flow of air. This causes the air to struggle as it moves past these obstructions, causing pauses in breath and irregular intake of air.
- Central sleep apnea is caused by the failure of your brainstem to stimulate breathing. It could be caused by an under-developed brain (as with premature babies) or with cardiovascular and central nervous system issues (as with those who have suffered from a stroke).
Knowing that your breathing actually stops while you’re sleeping, isn’t that a clear risk of suffocation?
Technically, it should not be possible to suffocate while you sleep, unless there are other health or safety risks present, and here’s why.
When you are unable to inhale air properly, your blood’s oxygen levels drop and your carbon dioxide levels increase as a result. Your brain can easily detect this, so it sends out a burst of cortisol into your system. This causes your heart rate to spike, causing you to wake up and immediately gasp for air.
Of course, these frequent spikes to your heart rate can cause bigger problems overtime. This is why sleep apnea has to be diagnosed as early as possible so that timely treatment can be ensured.
The Death Risks of Sleep Apnea
Studies over the years have proven time and again that sleep apnea is a big contributor to a number of public health risks. Sure, sleep apnea does not directly cause death. However, it can trigger conditions that could lead to it.
Here are some of the death risks involved in cases of sleep apnea:
- Vehicular accidents
Studies show that sleep apnea raises the probability of someone being involved in a car accident.
There are a number of things that can trigger the likelihood of a car accident happening, like alcohol consumption and shift work. However, the numbers show that sleep apnea patients get involved in car accidents 3 times more compared to others.
Especially when looking at serious crashes like head-on collisions, Dr. Alan Mulgrew of the University of British Columbia says that 80% of these crashes involved sleep apnea patients.
Sleep apnea affects a person’s daytime routine as much as it makes an impact on your sleep. Because of the frequent rousing from their sleep, sleep apnea patients are unable to have deep, restful sleep.
This is why sleep apnea patients are often drowsy during the day. It also makes them lose their focus and makes it easy for them to be distracted. They also become more irritable, which could also contribute to them being involved in traffic altercations.
- Pregnancy complications
If you’ve been looking into sleep apnea for quite some time now, then you probably know that obesity is one of sleep apnea’s risk factors. Because of the added weight around the neck and throat area, there is a tendency for the airway to become narrower, making it harder to breathe.
The same thing happens for pregnant women, especially for those who are on their third trimester. Because of the added weight, the same risks as that of an obese person are present.
Doctors find that pregnant women in their hospital who have a body mass index of over 35 showed alarmingly low blood oxygen levels while they’re sleeping. Not only does this endanger the health and lives of the pregnant women, it endangers the babies in their tummies as well.
Studies also show that pregnant women who show signs of sleep apnea are twice as likely to develop gestational diabetes. They are also 4 times more likely to have high blood pressure during their pregnancy.
- Cardiovascular issues
If you’ve had sleep apnea for around 4 or 5 years, your risk of suffering from a heart attack or dying from heart issues increases by 30%. The more severe your case of sleep apnea is, the bigger the risks as well.
The good news is, going through the right sleep apnea treatment can also help pull down the risks of heart disease.
Diagnosing Sleep Apnea Early
Because of the risk of death, it is important to diagnose sleep apnea early so that the right treatment can also be administered in a timely manner.
Sleep Apnea Symptoms
One key to having sleep apnea diagnosed right away is knowing what the key symptoms are. Here are some of the most common symptoms seen in sleep apnea patients:
- Loud snoring
- Choking or coughing while sleeping
- Gasping for air or episodes where you stop breathing while sleeping
- Waking up with a dry mouth or with a sore throat
- Morning headaches
- Restless sleep
- Excessive sleepiness during the daytime
- Lack of focus and difficulty in paying attention
- Mood shifts and extreme irritability during the day
- Forgetfulness
- Lack of interest in activities that used to be enjoyable
Once these symptoms are seen, make sure you consult your doctor right away.
Sleep Apnea Diagnosis
So you noticed the symptoms, and you decided to visit your doctor. What happens now?
Your doctor would most likely refer you to a sleep specialist who can determine what kind of sleep apnea you have. You will be asked to go through either (or both) of these tests:
- Home sleep test
There are tests that you can take at home using a portable machine that can track your airflow, breathing patterns, blood oxygen level and heart rate while you sleep. Once the results show any abnormalities in any of those areas, your doctor will then recommend the treatment that fits you best.
These home sleep tests, however, are simplified and do not really detect all kinds of sleep apnea. This is why you may also be advised to go through a nocturnal polysomnography.
- Nocturnal polysomnography
If the sleep specialist wants to get a more thorough look at what happens to your body while you sleep, you will most likely be advised to take a nocturnal polysomnography. In this case, you’ll have to stay at the sleep center overnight.
Unlike the usual home sleep tests, a nocturnal polysomnography is able to monitor more of your body and brain activity while you sleep. It can track arm and leg movements, heart, lung and brain activity, blood oxygen levels, and breathing patterns.
Similar to what happens after a home sleep test, the doctor will start to recommend the best forms of treatment based on what the sleep specialist finds out from the polysomnography. You may have to go through specific forms of therapy, but in some cases surgery may be advised as well. A few lifestyle changes will be recommended too, as support to the treatment that you will be getting.
Related Questions
How long do you stop breathing with sleep apnea?
People with sleep apnea can regularly stop breathing for 10 seconds to a few minutes while sleeping. Depending on how bad the case of sleep apnea is, these interruptions in breathing can happen from 5 to 100 times every hour. There are also instances where the breathing does not necessarily stop, but becomes very shallow. This is called hypopnea.
Can skinny people have sleep apnea?
Sleep apnea has always been related to obesity, but skinny people can have sleep apnea, too. If they experience any inflammation around their nasal passages or upper airways, for example, this could lead to the flow of air being constricted. There are also other issues that could lead to sleep apnea in skinny people, like abnormalities in their airways and nasal passages, cardiovascular and central nervous system issues, among others.
