SOURCE: American Heart Association, February, 2012

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Ivanhoe Newswire) – Here’s an eye-opener for those suffering from severe sleep apnea. It may increase your risk of silent strokes and lesions in the brain.

People with sleep apnea often experience a lack of oxygen reaching the brain, as well as other parts of the body. Strokes occur when blood—supplied by oxygen—doesn’t flow properly to the brain. “We found a surprisingly high frequency of sleep apnea in patients with stroke that underlines its clinical relevance as a stroke risk factor,” said Jessica Kepplinger, M.D., the study’s lead researcher and stroke fellow in the Dresden University Stroke Center’s Department of Neurology at the University of Technology in Dresden, Germany.

Patients for this study underwent overnight in-hospital testing for sleep apnea. The participants were white with an average age of 67 and 54 percent of them were women. Magnetic resonance imaging and computerized tomography was used to determine silent strokes and white matter lesions within the volunteers. Kepplinger and her colleagues found that ninety-one percent (51 of 56) of the patients who had a stroke had sleep apnea and were more likely to have silent strokes and white matter lesions that increased their risk of disability at hospital discharge. They also discovered more than one-third of the patients with white matter lesions had severe sleep apnea and more than 50 percent of the silent stroke patients had sleep apnea. Even though men were more likely to have silent infarctions, correlations between sleep apnea and silent infarcts remained the same after adjustment for such gender differences.

Researchers suggested that sleep apnea should be treated the same as other vascular risk factors such as high blood pressure. Kepplinger
and her team plan to do more studies on sleep apnea, particularly in high-risk patients with silent strokes and white matter lesions, to determine the impact of non-invasive ventilation and on short-term clinical outcome.

Do You Snore?

Do you or someone you know snore?  According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), nearly 50% of all Americans snore. Snoring is created by the vibration of the pharyngeal soft tissues as air passes through an airway that is too small to allow for smooth unimpeded flow.  Did you know that snoring is the number one symptom of a lethal disease called sleep apnea?  To give you a better understanding of the term, “apnea” comes from the Greek word meaning “without breath.”

Sleep apnea is a serious condition that should not be ignored.  This disease actually causes you to wake up numerous times an hour while you sleep. More specifically, obstructed sleep apnea, (OSA) is a situation in which the entire upper airway is blocked, causing airflow to stop.  Ask someone to observe you while you sleep.  They will notice shallow breathing and possibly even pauses while you sleep.  This may look disturbing.  The breathing interruptions can last anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes, per breathing episode.  This causes the individual to get restless sleep and feel extremely fatigued during the day.

What makes sleep apnea so dangerous?  Many individuals have sleep apnea and have no clue that they suffer from it.  Untreated sleep apnea increases the chances of heart attack, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and even sudden death by 46%!  According to the Center for Disease Control, (CDC), 20% of the U.S. population will have sleep apnea by 2012.  Even more staggering, 90% of the population will go undiagnosed.  If you or your sleep partner suspects that you may have sleep apnea, please contact our office immediately.

Snoring is no longer a laughing matter. Since snoring may be a symptom of sleep apnea, it should be taken very seriously and therefore consider treatment without hesitation.

Images courtesy of quietsleep.com

Obstructive Sleep Apnea occurs when the tissues of your upper airway (throat) collapse down and restrict or prevent you from breathing for extended periods of time while you sleep.  A person with diagnosed obstructive sleep apnea can have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of events throughout the night.  The body rarely wakes up and patients don’t often recall not breathing, even though it happened many times. The body is deprived of valuable oxygen, it is essentially being suffocated at night, every night over and over again…

As a result of the constant nighttime breathing stoppages, patients will often begin to suffer from a number of symptoms directly related to sleep apnea.

These include:
-headaches
-snoring
-excessive daytime tiredness
-acid reflux
-high blood pressure
-diabetes
-heart attack
-stroke

32" HDTV

In 2001 we introduced laser dentistry to our practice with the Waterlase dental laser.  This laser enabled patients to experience injection free and drill-less dental fillings.   Shortly thereafter we brought a diode laser called the Lasersmile into the practice.  This allowed us to offer laser bleaching as well as many other procedures . We also brought in a third laser that aided in early cavity detection called the Diagnodent.  Five years ago, we introduced the Periolase dental laser into our practice.  This laser allows us to treat gum disease that in the past would have required surgery.

Since we are the only office in Rockland that offers this innovative technology to our patients, we decided to call ourselves GLAD; this stands for General and Laser Assisted Dentistry.

Now for the contest…We call ourselves GLAD.  We want you to tell us why you are GLAD to be patients in our office!

Here’s how to enter the contest:
1) Go to www.facebook.com/DrRobertTracey and “LIKE” us
2) Click “Comments” at the end of this blog post
3) Include your name and email address then post a short paragraph or two telling your reason for being GLAD you are our patient.
5) Click submit

How the winner will be selected:
1) Our staff will read all entries and select their 10 favorite entries.
2) The winner will randomly be selected from the 10 favorites on September 22,2011
3) The prize needs to be claimed by October3, 2011.  A picture will be taken with the winner and the staff.

Rules of the contest:
1) You must be at least 21 years of age to enter
2) Only one entry per person
3) Parents may enter for their children
4) You must be a patient of our practice
5) Staff and their relatives are not eligible to win the prize

Good luck!

If you need to schedule an appointment or are “interviewing” us as your potential new dental provider, call today! You may also want to review information about us here.