THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 14, 1995 TAG: 9509140052
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Marie Joyce
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Obstructive sleep apnea - Snoring is a pretty common occurrence, and most people who snore don't have this condition. But in about 5 out of 100 cases, snoring is a sign of apnea - cessation of breathing. Throat muscles relax too much, closing off the passage. The snoring is the sound of air trying to push past those muscles. When the brain senses the lack of oxygen, the sleeper wakes up slightly. This may happen hundreds of times a night, preventing restful sleep. Sometimes the sleeper isn't aware of these brief awakenings.
The condition is most common among middle-aged, overweight men, but it can strike anyone. And it can lead to life-threatening conditions like high blood pressure and heart disease. In a related condition, central sleep apnea, the air passage may stay open but the diaphragm and chest muscles stop working.
In mild cases, sleeping on one's side may help. Treatment involves the use of breathing equipment to force air through the passageways, surgery or dental devices. Sleeping pills or alcohol make it worse.
Long-term insomnia - Rats deprived of sleep will die after about three weeks, but people who say they don't sleep at night actually sleep a lot more than they realize. In fact, most spend more time asleep than awake, but for some reason they aren't getting restful sleep. Once other physical and psychiatric disorders are ruled out, treatments range from developing good sleep habits to relaxation techniques to ``sleep restriction'' - limiting the hours spent in bed so that the person is quite tired when he goes to bed - and then gradually increasing sleep time. Sleeping pills aren't useful for long-term insomnia.
Periodic limb movement disorder - Some people toss their arms and legs while they sleep. The movement is involuntary, and the sleeper often isn't aware of it, though bed partners certainly notice. During the day, the person may feel tired but not realize he or she isn't sleeping at night. Treatment involves good sleep hygiene and medication. A similar problem, restless legs syndrome, strikes while the person is awake and causes a creepy, painful feeling in the legs that's only relieved by movement. This also can interfere with a person's falling asleep. These conditions aren't the same things as ``hypnic jerks,'' the normal, occasional jerks of the body as a person is falling asleep.
Narcolepsy - A little-understood genetic condition that causes chemical imbalances in the brain cells that control waking and sleeping. It can cause excessive sleepiness or even ``sleep attacks,'' as well as sudden, brief loss of muscle control, collapse, paralysis and hallucinations. There's no cure, but sufferers can improve their quality of life with prescription medication and control of their environment.
REM behavior disorder - A condition that occurs during episodes of rapid eye movement, a normal part of the sleep cycle in which people dream. Most people are paralyzed during those parts of the night. But some people, particularly men middle-aged and older, lose the paralysis and act out their dreams. It usually can be treated with medication. It's different from sleepwalking, which occurs in a non-dreaming stage and usually affects children and young people.
Gastroesophageal reflux - The muscle separating the stomach from the esophagus relaxes during sleep, causing stomach acid to back up into the esophagus. The person wakes up slightly to swallow. Treatment involves diet control, antacids and, in some cases, surgery.
Bruxism - Tooth-grinding. When people do this during the rapid-eye-movement periods of sleep, the body doesn't initiate the same controls it uses during the day to keep someone from grinding so hard when chewing that he or she wears down her teeth. This may be treated with medication or a mouthpiece.
KEYWORDS: SLEEP DISORDER by CNB