1. Snoring

Sleep snoring is a common phenomenon of life, but also the most common and one of the most typical symptoms in patients with sleep apnea syndrome. Snoring is due to vibration of soft palate and the soft tissue around the throat when air flow passing through a narrow airway. Generally speaking, The more narrower the airway, the snoring louder, but should be noted that the more louder snoring not indicate the more serious of sleep apnea syndrome. In addition, snoring of patients with sleep apnea syndrome is different from the ordinary snorers snoring.

A small number of patients with sleep apnea syndrome denied that they have history of snoring which is commonly found in the following situations:

• Snorer often do not know their snoring, when asked whether they snoring, they will also not hesitate to say “no”, but their lovers or friends are often able to provide accurate information. The best way is to use tape recorders  record the snoring of the patients.

• If the patient has already emerged respiratory failure or suffering from neuromuscular disorders at the same time, respiratory muscle weakness, does not have enough power to bring high-speed airflow through a narrow airway, snoring naturally much smaller or even disappear.

• Some patients with apnea is due to central sleep apnea caused by brain lesions, such as brain tumors, cerebral ischemia or heart failure , central nervous system due to poor respiratory drive, which took insufficient to produce an effective nerve impulse muscle contraction, and therefore can not produce high-speed airflow, snoring is also not so loud the.

• Some of these patients is due to surgical removal of available vibration of the soft tissue (such as the soft palate, uvula, etc.) around the airway. Thus, although apnea occurs but no snoring. As the loud snoring is often the reason patients come to treatment, snoring disappeared after the surgery, the patient’s family members are often mistaken the successful of operation and neglect the still frequent occurrence of apnea, the patient dying in silence, which is a very dangerous situation.

2. Sleep excessively

Mainly manifested as fall asleep during the day can not be suppressed, involuntary sleep and snoring regardless of time and place . The most serious illness and even will be soundly asleep when talking with others. The patient’s sleep time usually up to 10 hours, if conditions permit, they can all day lethargy. You might ask, “So long sleep time, why does he fall asleep?” The reason is that although they sleep a long time, but the poor quality of sleep.

Normal sleep is implemented progressively, and only the deep sleep can reduce fatigue, maintain a clear head during the day, while patients with sleep apnea syndrome because of frequent apnea often wake up from sleep, hold back and rarely get into deep sleep. Day after day, year after year, they will feel that they had never slept a good feel.Inspection of the means applied science also found that they feel is right.

It is noteworthy that some patients with sleep apnea syndrome is not aware of their sleep have any questions, it is because the appearance of sleepiness is a gradual process, can take years, decades before the progress manifested itself most visibly, and people have greater tolerance to the lack of sleep, thus mild drowsiness is often mistakenly believed to be due to age changes, tiredness, mental stress due to other reasons, failed to timely diagnosis and treatment. In addition, the sleepiness may also be performance some of other sleep-related diseases, such as sleep, cataplexy syndrome, or because of short sleep time, sleep phase changes, abnormal movements during sleep, the influence of drugs, etc., need to be carefully identified.

3. Frequent sleep apnea

During sleep, the person’s breathing is not an absolute law, for example, when you just fall asleep or awake, breathing occasionally a brief interval, especially in the dream, the depth of breathing often uneven, which are all normal physiological changes . But the sleepiness apnea syndrome is different, they will frequent apnea, and will continue to tens of seconds or even minutes.  According to the different conditions, the appearance time of apnea are also different, some apnea only occur in a specific period of time or supine position, while others continued apnea throughout the night.

4. Mouth breathing at night

Many patients with snoring conscious early morning dry mouth, need to get up at night drinking water, tongue dry yellow, lips chapped and permanently. When breathing through mouth,  air without wet-based and warm  of  nasal passages, dry air directly through the mouth into the throat, airways, long-term repeated stimulation, cause discomfort.  Many people mouth breathing during sleep, which so long been mistakenly think that this is a normal sleep performance, however, the fact is not this. When lying sleep, the tongue fall back, often blocking the respiratory tract, respiratory pause, open mouth, the mandible forward, the tongue body forward along, respiratory expanded easily through the air, showing that mouth breathing during sleep is a kinds of compensatory response of sleep apnea.

5. Early morning eye pain

Early morning eye swollen, which is one of the symptoms that many patients with sleep apnea syndrome, examination revealed that many patients with the highest IOP in the morning.

6. Abnormal movements during sleep, and other anomalies

• hold breath at night, in the late apnea, patients often hold back awake, and even sat up suddenly, the kind of choking flu patients feel very scared. This is also a common cause the patients seek for treatment . Because of its similarity with paroxysmal nocturnal breathing as heart dysfunction, which may be misdiagnosed as heart disease.

• A small number of patients also frequently swinging limb, beating bed with people, and some fell from his bed, sleep soundly on the floor.

• Limbs twitch, mostly for the law of unilateral lower limb or upper limb tic, some are caused by neurological diseases, and some disappeared through the effective treatment of sleep apnea syndrome .

• Sweat can often wet pajamas, bed sheets, not because the room is too hot or the temperature is too high, but because of suffocation, forced breathing, hypoxia.

• Sometimes lips, and acral cyanosis can be seen.

• An increase in nocturnal and nocturnal enuresis.

• Some patients take special sleeping posture, such as the prone position, sitting, which can reduce the holded breath .

• Grand mal epilepsy,

A person sleep at night when breathing stops lasted more than 10 seconds is considered apnea, this time the oxygen in the blood reduced, the body in a hypoxic state. If the frequent occurrence of apnea, occurs more than 5 times per hour or more than 30 times in 7 hours of sleep. If no effective treatment, year after year, there would be serious consequences, and a series of pathophysiological changes, which can be diagnosed with sleep apnea syndrome. It is different from a certain kind of simple disease, is a clinical syndrome caused by a variety of reasons.

Because after the occurrence of apnea, respiratory airflow interruption, patients with hypoxia and repeated waking from sleep, which against the various body systems, leading complex and diverse clinical manifestations. The main clinical manifestations, such as snoring, apnea, abnormal limb movements during sleep and the patient have in general not aware of this. Their spouse, children or friends, though often encountered in patients with apnea from occurring, to endure the noise interference, in fear and worry about another one to spend a sleepless night.  It is difficult to associated those with patients appear daytime sleepiness, irritability, memory impairment and other and some have mistakenly believed that snoring is the performance of deepsleeping.

For constraints of recognition, even if there are individual patients who sought medical advice everywhere, it is often misdiagnosed as heart disease, neurosis. All this makes the understanding of sleep apnea syndrome, the main symptoms, coupled with careful observation, without the aid of instruments to help, you can roughly estimate whether your relatives, friends, or youself  suffering from sleep apnea syndrome, provide clues for further medical care for accurate diagnosis and treatment.

Since launching in 1989 of sleep apnea syndrome diagnosis and treatment,  we have found that the most important clinical manifestation is sleeping snoring, daytime sleepiness, and frequent occurrence of apnea and other clinical manifestation as the following table.

Sleep apnea syndrome in the clinical manifestations

There are about 1 / 3 of person’s life spent in sleeping, and thick darkness for this 1 / 3 coated with a layer of mystery. The phenomena occurred in people sleep is the mystery that people trying to solve. Through sleep disorders like dreaming and sleepwalking, enuresis, insomnia, narcolepsy, periodic somnolence already attracted the attention of the medical workers, but there’s often taken for granted, were not seriously. As for the sleep impactation to other diseases, it is even more poorly understood.

Studies have shown that Am is the day’s peak time of the death occurred. In life we may encounter such a situation: A friend has always been healthy suddenly and inexplicably died during sleep. Adorable baby away quietly in his sleep and never wake up again,  sad mother often endless self-reproach that his own carelessness, pacifier or arms and blocked the respiratory tract of infants and children died from choking. Little do they know of these accidents are likely to die in our sleep related to another common phenomenon, that is frequent snoring and apnea.

Stanford University Sleep Research Center for sleep-disordered breathing has done a lot of research and found that more than 10 seconds during sleep apnea can cause the blood in patients with significantly reduced oxygen, causing the body of  hypoxia. Sleep apnea may also occur in normal people occasionally, but generally not cause too much harm, and thus no clinical significance. Only when such a frequent occurrence of apnea and the frequency more than 5 times per hour, can leading to repeated hypoxia and wake up from sleep, causing a range of clinical manifestations, medically known as sleep apnea syndrome.

A large number of survey found that population of 1% to 4% of people with the disease, the United States, for example, estimated that 20 million people have sleep apnea, 30 to 60-year-old adults 1 / 4 male and 1 / 10 of women have clinical manifestations of the disease. According to statistics, there are about 3,000 people a day die of the disease. Almost all patients have a history of snoring during sleep, about every five of those who snore their is one person suffering from a disease.

Although the sleep apnea syndrome in a variety of clinical manifestations,  most of the performance of patients with the following common characteristics:

• Loud and uneven snoring
• Occur sleep apnea during sleep
• Abnormal movements during sleep
• Daytime sleepiness
• Daytime fatigue, weakness, head spaced.
• Obesity
• Early morning dry mouth, headache, dizziness
• Memory loss, unresponsive, decreased academic performance, personality change.
• Male sexual dysfunction
• Nocturnal enuresis

Of course, not every patient with clinical features of the above, especially in the less severe, the patient himself is often unaware about those. Often their wife, children, friends have the best opportunity to observe the onset of apnea patients, their observation and narrative often provide valuable diagnostic clues.

Sleep apnea syndrome is a higher rate of incidence against the larger disease, the medical profession’s understanding of it has gone through a lengthy process, until recent years to have a more in-depth understanding.