History of Sleep Apnea and Sleep Apnea Treatments

Monday 13 August 2012 @ 8:14 pm

Did you know that sleep apnea was correctly diagnosed only in the 1970s? And that one of the initial treatment for it involved tracheotomy—making a permanent hole in the throat about the size of a quarter allowing the patient to breathe bypassing nose or mouth? All this and more are written about in a Slate.com article, Generation Apnea by David K. Randall. Please check out the article for its informative content.

Initially doctors who observed sleep apnea in obese patients who were prone to drift into sleep unintentionally referred to sleep apnea as the Pickwickian syndrome after a character who falls asleep standing up in Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers.

You can learn more interesting facts about sleep apnea, its history and how the first air pressure breathing apparatus was created in the 1980s with a diving mask and a vacuum cleaner engine attached to a handful of plastic tubes.

Among other interesting details Randall also explains succinctly what exactly takes place when a person with sleep apnea falls asleep:

Patients with sleep apnea experience a strange nightly sensation that brings the body disturbingly close to death. First, the throat closes randomly throughout the night, choking off the body’s air supply. This puts in motion a cascade of increasingly bad side effects. As if on a seesaw, the lack of air causes the oxygen levels in the blood to plummet and the blood pressure to jump. The lips and skin start to turn blue. Air may not come into the lungs for up to a minute. And for some patients, the heart stops beating for almost 10 seconds at a time.

Eventually, the brain gets the urgent message that the body is choking. The brain jolts awake, and the body instinctively gasps for air. Yet as soon as the airway is clear, the brain immediately falls back to sleep. That’s when the cycle starts again…

We will leave you to enjoy the complete article on Slate without being complete spoilers. It is really worth a read.

You can read more about sleep apnea and sleep apnea treatments in these previous posts:

You may also want to check out the article titled Your Tongue Size May Determine Success of Sleep Apnea Treatment in the Dental Studies section on the FreeDentistFinder.com article archive.

If you feel you or a loved one suffers from sleep apnea, contact your doctor or dentist immediately. The best way to find a dentist practicing close to you is to search on the FreeDentistFinder.com national network of quality dentists. FreeDentistFinder.com dentists have expressed their willingness to discuss issues with you over the telephone and to clarify matters even before you fix a dental appointment.

Visit FreeDentistFinder.com now to find a dentist by zip code or dental specialty.

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