If sleep apnea side effects were not so serious, many people would be happy to go to sleep. But it’s not so easy to sleep when you know that you have a real problem with sleep apnea.
As time passes, sleep apnea (SA) becomes more serious and dangerous to your life. All aspects of your life will be affected, including quality of life and psychological problems.
If you have SA, you will start with a very bad sleep, with nights struggling to breathe and noisy snoring that will make your partner to wonder about you and your future together.
You will have negative changes in personality, a poor work performance and a continuous decrease of quality of life.
And this is only the beginning…
Let’s suppose that you avoid to treat sleep apnea for a period of time. What will happen to you?
Well, at first you will be affected by serious health problems, such as:
* heart arrhythmia, or abnormal heart rhythm
This problem is very common at patients with SA. Your heart may have long pauses between beats, even 2 or 3 seconds long, or extra beats.
Arrhythmia, which appear during sleep, is a risk of sudden death. If you didn’t know this, now you have a reason to be afraid to sleep.
The good news is that when you start CPAP therapy, this problem will disappear.
* There is a strong correlation between sleep apnea and obesity. Obesity is known to have an influence on sleep disordered breathing, and to affect sleep quality.
* low blood oxygen level is another one of the typical SA side effects responsible for worsening your health.
Your blood oxygen level will decrease during the night. With each apnea episode, your blood oxygen will drop to an abnormal level and affect your cells. The most affected organ of your body will be the brain.
That’s why you may have memory loss, strange judgments, loss of balance and loss of proper coordination of movements. You’ll be surprised to find simple work tasks to be too difficult to do.
* high blood pressure symptoms appear as effects of your low blood oxygen level. If this symptoms continue to appear, the risk of stroke will increase to an alarming level.
* SA and congestive heart failure are often found together, especially if you have central SA.
This side effect of SA results from delivery of low blood oxygen level to the body tissues.
* Scientists have found that sleep deprivation from SA disorder may be an important risk factor in the development of diabetes.
* car accidents are very common at drivers with SA.
The main reason is drowsy driving, which results from excessive daytime sleepiness.
* Can sleep apnea cause death?
Knowing all SA side effects, you will now wonder if sleep apnea is deadly. And I think you already know the answer, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, there is more side effects of SA:
Your quality of life will be seriously affected.
SA and depression is a tough combination. The risk of depression rises when you see your work performance is affected or your bed partner announces to leave you.
Psychological problems, like irritability, anger, loss of memory and confusion will slowly destroy your mental health.
Enough with bad news!
I want to remember that all this health problems can disappear if you use a proper treatment of SA.
The CPAP therapy can help eliminate many of these SA side effects, even from the first days of use!
Learn more about Sleep Apnea by Thiery Remy at Sleep-Apnea-Guide.com.