Sleep Apnoea Syndromes

Since snoring is considered harmful to good health, then it comes as no surprise that a condition that involves snoring and not breathing at all is going to be even worse.

Sleep apnoea is a dangerous condition that is linked to diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, depression, paranoia and many other serious issues. If you have sleep apnoea, then it is strongly recommended that you deal with it one way or another, because it is unlikely to go away by itself.

Diagnosis of sleep apnoea

Initially most people think that they might have sleep apnoea because their bed partner reports that they stop breathing while they are asleep, or the person is far more tired than would normally be expected with the amount of sleep that they are getting.

Sleep Apnoea Symptoms

The most common symptoms of both types of sleep apnoea include excessive day time fatigue and brain fog, or an inability to think clearly and remember things.

Obstructive Sleep Apnoea

Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) is a condition where the soft tissues found in the vicinity of the back of the mouth collapse during an inhalation while the person sleeps. It is normally associated with a history of snoring or mouth-breathing during sleep, which from the Buteyko perspective, fits perfectly into whole scenario of hyperventilation causing breathing difficulties and malfunction of body processes.

Hyperventilation Connection to Obstructive Sleep Apnoea

Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) falls into the category of dysfunctional breathing, because the breathing is erratic, with periods of breathing relatively normally, excessively, and also periods of not breathing at all.

Central Sleep Apnoea

Unlike Obstructive Sleep Apnoea, Central Sleep Apnoea is not involved with snoring or a collapse of the throat, instead the person simply stops breathing temporarily.

It would seem that for a short time the breathing centre in the brain sends no signal to the breathing muscles, and so the person sleeps on peacefully and motionless, until either the concentration of oxygen drops too low, or the concentration of carbon dioxide gets too high, creating a strong urge to breathe again.

Hyperventilation Connection to Central Sleep Apnoea

While the hyperventilation connection to Central Sleep Apnoea (CSA) is not as strong as that of Obstructive Sleep Apnoea, one successful treatment is to use CPAP with supplemental carbon dioxide, suggesting that there is an underlying problem with the overall breathing pattern.

Sleep Apnoea Treatments

The main treatment for Mixed and Obstructive Sleep Apnoea is to use some kind of device, surgery, or machine that primarily aims to keep the mouth shut and have the person breathing through their nose. This is of course the normal way to breathe during sleep and so it makes perfect sense to do this.

Buteyko solution to sleep apnoea

Since the main aim of all the conventional treatments for sleep apnoea appear to get a person to breathe normally while they are asleep, then the question you could ask yourself is, "Why don't I just work on my fixing my abnormal breathing pattern and be done with it?"