Sleep Apnea Cure

Sleep Apnea Diagnosis

How Is Sleep Apnea Diagnosed?

Your doctor will usually look at your symptoms first. He will also look at your medical history, as well as your family medical histories. He will then decide if you need to see a sleep specialist.

Sleep specialists are doctors who diagnose and treat people who have sleep problems. Examples of such doctors include lung and nerve specialists and ear, nose, and throat specialists.

Medical and Family Histories

Your doctor will ask you how you sleep and how you function during the day, and he would want to know the same things about your family. A could idea is to keep a sleep diary for one or two weeks, before you go to see your doctor. Use this diary to write down how much you sleep, and how sleepy you feel during the day.

Ask you bed partner or a member of your family if you snore or make choking sounds during your sleep, lots of time you are not aware of this yourself.

Find out if any member of your family has been diagnosed with sleep apnea, or has had any symptoms of this disorder, your doctor is probably going to ask you this, when you visit him.

A lot of people are not aware of their symptoms and are not diagnosed.


Physical Exam

Your doctor will check your mouth, nose, and throat for large tissues. In children who are suffering from sleep apnea, the tonsils may be enlarged. A physical exam and medical history may be all that's needed to diagnose sleep apnea in children.

Adults who have sleep apnea may have an enlarged uvula or soft palate. The uvula is the tissue that hangs from the middle of the back of your mouth. The soft palate is the roof of your mouth in the back of your throat.

Sleep Studies

The best way for diagnosing sleep apnea is to conduct a sleep study. It will record what happens with your breathing while you sleep.

Your doctor might send you to a sleep center, or sleep lab, if he suspects you have sleep apnea. Here usually a polysommogram, or PSG, is done, something similar could be done at your home, using a portable monitor.

Polysomnogram

A polysommogram is the most common sleep study for diagnosing sleep apnea. This test records:

A sleep specialist may use the results from a home-based sleep test to help diagnose sleep apnea. He or she also may use the results to determine whether you need a full polysommogram study in a sleep center.

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