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Snoring (medical terminology is snoring, snoring, sleep apnea syndrome) is a common sleep phenomenon. At present, most people think it is a cliche, but it is not. Some people regard snoring as a sign of a sound sleep. In fact, snoring is the enemy of health, because snoring repeatedly causes sleep and apnea, causing severe hypoxia in the brain and blood, forming hypoxemia, inducing hypertension, brain heart disease, arrhythmia, myocardial infarction, angina pectoris and so on. The apnea time at night exceeds 120 seconds, and sudden death is easy to occur in the early morning.
Causes of snoring
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In medicine, snoring is called "sleep apnea syndrome". According to statistics, the problem of male snoring is more serious, and the ratio of male to female is "6 to 0/kloc". On the other hand, men start snoring earlier, which may occur after the age of 20, while women are later than men, mostly after the age of 40.
In medical theory, snoring is caused by the following three reasons:
1, caused by central diseases
2, caused by obstructive diseases.
3, caused by mixed diseases.
Generally speaking, mixed symptoms are the most common problem in adults, while obstruction is the most common problem in children.
The medical community believes that snoring may also be caused by other physical reasons. At present, medical research reports show that patients with hypertension and cardiovascular diseases are more likely to snore, and obese people are more likely to snore. In addition, patients with chest diseases, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis are more likely to snore.
The harm of snoring
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1At the international symposium on snoring held in Beijing in April, 1994, experts and scholars from all over the world characterized snoring as "sleep apnea syndrome", which is a symptom and a syndrome related to 27 diseases. How to define it? Every pause for more than 10 second is apnea. Sleep apnea syndrome is defined as more than five pauses exceeding 10 second in one hour's sleep, or about 30 pauses exceeding 10 second in seven hours' sleep. It is very harmful to human body. People spend13 of their life in sleep. Normal people breathe evenly during sleep, and the oxygen intake meets the needs of all parts of the body. However, people who sleep for 7 hours every night and have apnea will be in an anaerobic inhalation state for 300-400 seconds, and the blood oxygen concentration is about 8- 10% lower than the normal value. In this way, night after night, year after year, fragmented sleep will obviously reduce oxygen intake, and all important parts of the body will be ischemic and hypoxic, causing various serious diseases. If brain cells continue to be deprived of oxygen for 4-6 minutes, it will cause irreversible death of brain cells. 53% of patients' cerebrovascular accidents occurred during night sleep. Recent research shows that snoring and apnea are the independent causes of cerebrovascular diseases, and they are also one of the main causes. The death rate of snoring increases sharply at night. Without treatment, the death rate of snoring with a history of about 5 years is 1 1%-13%, and the apnea is more than 15 times per hour. The death rate of snoring with a history of 8 years was 37%, and 72.5% of wives didn't get enough sleep every night because of their husbands' snoring 1. 9.7% of women suffer from neurasthenia because their husbands snore. Therefore, snoring is not a normal phenomenon but a serious disease, which is the source of evil that induces other diseases.
Snoring during sleep is a common phenomenon in daily life. Most people know that snoring will affect others' rest, but experts from Beijing Snoring Research Center warn that snoring may also be a dangerous signal of sleep apnea syndrome, which is harmful to human health.
According to experts, snoring is called snoring in medicine and is a major clinical manifestation of sleep apnea syndrome. It can not only cause drowsiness and fatigue of daytime snorers, but also be related to some respiratory diseases and cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular accidents.
Experts say that if you snore at night with the following symptoms, it is a dangerous signal from your body and needs immediate treatment: snoring during sleep, breathing with your mouth open, and frequent breathing stops; Repeated sleep, restless sleep and epilepsy; Sleepiness, daytime sleepiness, sleepiness; Blood pressure rises after waking up; Shallow sleep, headache after waking up; Night sleep angina pectoris, arrhythmia; Nocturnal enuresis and nocturia increased; Memory loss, slow response, and decreased work and study ability; I seem to sleep during the day, and I can't help falling asleep at work, meetings and meals. Impotence, decreased libido; Alzheimer's disease
In addition to treatment, the following measures can be taken in daily life to relieve snoring symptoms: sleeping in lateral position, changing sleeping habits in supine position; Try not to drink alcohol before going to bed, don't drink strong tea or coffee, and don't take certain drugs, because alcohol, sedatives, sleeping pills and antiallergic drugs will make breathing shallow and slow, make muscles more relaxed than usual, and lead to pharyngeal soft tissue blocking the airway more easily; Develop the habit of regular exercise, lose weight and enhance lung function.
Experts also specially reminded that snorers should quit smoking immediately if they have the habit of smoking. Because only by keeping the nasopharynx unobstructed can snoring be reduced, and the stimulation of smoking on nasal mucosa will only make the blocked nasal cavity and respiratory tract more serious. In addition, snorers should also prevent colds and treat nasal congestion in time.
Prevention and health care of snoring
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1, strengthen physical exercise and maintain good living habits.
2. Avoid alcohol and tobacco hobbies, because smoking will aggravate respiratory symptoms, and drinking will aggravate snoring, nocturnal respiratory disorders and hypoxemia. Especially drinking before going to bed.
3. For obese people, we should actively lose weight and strengthen the collection of sports medicine education network. Our experience is to lose more than 5%- 10%.
4. Snoring patients often have low blood oxygen content, so they are often accompanied by high blood pressure, arrhythmia, increased blood viscosity, increased heart burden, etc., which may easily lead to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. So pay attention to blood pressure monitoring and take antihypertensive drugs on time.
5, it is forbidden to take sedative and hypnotic drugs before going to bed, so as not to aggravate the respiratory center regulation inhibition. Collection and arrangement of medical education network
6. Take the lateral position, especially the right lateral position, to prevent the tongue, soft palate and uvula from descending after relaxation during sleep, which will aggravate the upper airway obstruction. When sleeping, you can wear a small ball on your back to help you sleep on your side.
7, patients should give priority to with soft food after surgery, don't eat too hot food. Avoid strenuous activities.
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Snoring question and answer
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1, how is your sleep quality?
Some people may ask, "I still feel sleepy after sleeping for more than ten hours, while some people feel refreshed after sleeping for four or five hours." Why? " This is the problem of sleep quality. The quality of sleep mainly depends on the amount of deep sleep in stages 3 and 4. If you sleep for a short time or even very little in Stage 3 and Stage 4, but mainly for more than ten hours in Stage/kloc-0 and Stage 2, you will still feel very tired and sleepy. If 1 and stage 2 sleep for a long time and sleep less, even if you sleep for only five or six hours, you can still be energetic and healthy. So sleep is about quality, not time.
If you want to know your sleep quality, you can use polysomnography for detailed monitoring.
2. Under what circumstances should sleep disorders be considered?
Unhealthy sleep conditions include snoring, breathing with your mouth open, and even temporarily stopping breathing. Repeatedly awake during sleep, restless sleep. Nocturnal angina pectoris and arrhythmia often occur. Headache and dizziness after waking up, and high blood pressure after getting up in the morning. Fatigue and fatigue during the day, drowsiness, drowsiness, and even falling asleep at work meetings or driving. Memory decline, slow response, work and study ability decline. Sexual dysfunction, impotence, etc. If the above manifestations appear, sleep-related diseases or obstructive apnea syndrome should be highly considered. First of all, we should go to the otolaryngology department to check the pharynx and have a polysomnography.
Snoring is also a disease.
Snoring patients used to think it was a kind of deep sleep, but now people gradually realize that it may be a pathological condition. Snoring people are often complained by others, and their relationship with roommates or spouses becomes extremely tense, which makes them very angry. However, snoring is more harmful to apnea. The airway of snorers is narrower than that of normal people. In severe cases, the airway can be completely blocked and apnea occurs. When apnea occurs, gas cannot enter the lungs, resulting in hypoxia and carbon dioxide retention in the body. Severe cases can lead to hypertension, heart disease, arrhythmia, cerebrovascular accident, diabetes, nephropathy, hypothyroidism, etc., and even sudden death in sleep.
4. What is the mechanism of snoring?
The airway of snorers is usually narrower than that of normal people. When awake during the day, the compensatory contraction of laryngeal muscles keeps the airway open and not blocked. However, when sleeping at night, the nerve excitability decreases, the muscles relax, the pharyngeal tissue is blocked, and the upper airway collapses. When the airflow passes through the narrow part, it produces eddy current, causing vibration and snoring. In severe cases, you can temporarily stop breathing, thus affecting people's health. In addition, a small number of people are due to central reasons.
5. Common causes of snoring and apnea
Respiratory tract stenosis caused by various reasons, mainly upper respiratory tract stenosis above tracheal plane, can cause snoring and even apnea, including nasal septum deviation and nasal polyps. Pharyngeal stenosis: tonsil hypertrophy, slack throat and long uvula. Tongue hypertrophy, tongue root tumor and tongue root suffix lead to pharyngeal cavity stenosis. Maxillofacial dysplasia, such as micrognathia and obesity. Children are mostly due to tonsil hypertrophy, and the adenoids are enlarged.
6. What about snoring?
If snorers want to know their sleep quality, how many times they pause during sleep, how long they pause each time, the oxygen content in blood during sleep, and the change of heart rate during sleep, you only need to do polysomnography monitoring for one night, and polysomnography has been considered as an important examination for snorers. You can dynamically observe the EEG, ECG, EMG, oral and nasal airflow, blood oxygen saturation and heart rate during sleep, so as to understand the snoring situation.
7. Children should be alert to snoring.
Most children snore because of adenoids and tonsil hypertrophy in the nasopharynx, or because the craniofacial structure is deformed. Due to obvious airway obstructive lesions, apnea is prone to occur, leading to hypoxia, which affects the normal development and learning of children. It is reported that severe snoring can lead to dementia in children. Therefore, if a child snores at night, has inattention, lethargy, poor memory and poor academic performance in class, he should first go to the ENT department to check his nasopharynx and tonsils. If hypertrophy is obvious, corresponding treatment should be carried out.
8. General treatment of snoring
The treatment of snoring patients should be based on different reasons, and the choice of treatment method is the most important factor to determine the treatment effect. We will talk about the main methods of treating snoring in four times. Let's talk about general treatment first. Weight loss: Obesity is one of the factors leading to pharyngeal stenosis. Losing weight can reduce the degree of airway obstruction. Smoking cessation wine: Smoke can stimulate inflammation of the pharynx, causing edema and stenosis of the pharynx. Wine can relax muscles, shrink the base of the tongue and aggravate obstruction. In addition, not taking sedative sleeping pills before going to bed, sleeping on the side is good for snoring.
9. Drug treatment of snoring
Modern medical research has confirmed that the main causes of snoring are the stenosis and obstruction of nose and nasopharynx, oropharynx, soft palate and tongue root. During sleep, the soft tissue of pharynx relaxes and the tongue root retracts, which leads to the inability of airflow to freely pass through the pharyngeal airway. At present, there are many drugs that can treat snoring at home and abroad. Acetazolamide thyroxine tablets promote metabolism and have certain curative effect. It can be relieved to some extent during taking the medicine, but it cannot be cured. China's newly developed dual therapy of snore and American ET tablets can cure snoring. Are aimed at the root cause of snoring. By correcting the abnormal secretion of glands in the body and regulating the variation activity of cells related to respiratory tissues, the abnormal exudation of tracheal wall, soft palate tongue root tissue and nasal cavity cells will return to normal, and the local tissue structure will shrink and become healthy and elastic, dredge the respiratory tract, make the respiratory tract unobstructed and the air flow unobstructed, thus curing snoring.
10, surgical treatment of snoring
Different surgical methods should be selected according to the obstruction plane. For example, patients with nasal congestion should undergo nasal surgery to make the nasal passages unobstructed. Patients with pharyngeal stenosis can undergo velopharyngoplasty, which is the most commonly used surgical method to treat snoring and sleep apnea by removing part of the uvula and tonsils and increasing the pharyngeal space. Its success depends on the choice of surgical patients. In addition, patients with small mandible tend to lean backwards, and orthognathic surgery can be done.
1 1, treatment of snoring with plasma cryoablation technology
Plasma cryoablation is the latest patented technology in the United States and a very developed minimally invasive treatment method. It can melt the pharyngeal tissue, reduce the volume and reduce the hypertrophy of the tongue. Because it is hypothermia treatment, the local reaction is small, basically painless, no bleeding or less bleeding, and the operation time is short. It can be treated in outpatient department, mainly suitable for patients with nasal and pharyngeal stenosis and tongue hypertrophy. At present, the Department of Otolaryngology of Nanjing Bayi Hospital has treated many patients with plasma ablation technology and achieved good results.
12, continuous positive pressure ventilator and oral orthosis for snoring.
The main principle of continuous positive pressure ventilation (CPAP) is to wear a small CPAP machine when sleeping, so that the mask can be connected to the ventilator, which is similar to the principle of blowing balloons to enlarge the throat stenosis. Every patient needs different pressures, so doctors need to use polysomnography to determine an appropriate pressure. CPAP machine can obviously increase the oxygen content in blood, which is suitable for patients with moderate and severe snoring and other treatment failures.
13, physical therapy for correcting snoring with tongue rest
It is characterized by "oral organ correction", that is, following the mechanism of snoring, it is made into a semi-denture cover, which is worn in the mouth when sleeping and fixed on the gums. Through its special biological functional materials, it directly acts on the deformed parts of the patient's mouth-the upper soft palate and the lower Lickitung. Then, according to the correction principle of physical mechanics, the correct position and shape of the internal organs of the patient's mouth can be restored, and an unobstructed respiratory tract can be formed, so as to reduce or even fundamentally eliminate snoring and breath holding.
14, Matters needing attention in diet and life
Eat more light food, such as vegetables and fruits, smoke less and drink less. Early to bed and early to rise. Physical exercise can relieve snoring.
15, concluding remarks
Snoring and apnea syndrome will lead to serious consequences including multiple systems in the whole body, affecting people's health. Polysomnography is the main means to check and diagnose snoring. Different treatment methods should be selected according to the specific situation of patients.