Welcome to the current newsletter issue of
Advances in Medicine (AIM)- Take AIM against pain.
Feel free to send me an e-mail with your own thoughts
and experiences. Email: timsams@mypainreliefdoc.com.
Recently, another patient of mine was successfully treated for
sleep apnea with tremendous relief of pain, depression, fatigue,
anxiety, irritability and problems with attention, concentration,
short-term memory, problem-solving, and multi-tasking. This has
happened many, many hundreds of times in my practice, sometimes
initiated by me, most of the time not. Each time this happens,
I'm a little surprised, but always delighted, as is my patient.
Sleep apnea is defined as a cessation of breathing during sleep
that can occur dozens or even hundreds of time during sleep. It
is often associated with gasping, snorting, or snoring during
sleep. It is usually defined by episodes of ten seconds or
greater lack of breathing. It occurs most often in people who are
overweight. Some estimate that 25% of middle-aged men and 10% of
middle-aged women have sleep apnea. Note that you can be a young,
skinny, quiet sleeper and still have sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea can be devastating and profoundly exacerbate the
chronic pain syndrome. There are four stages of sleep (1-4),
including the "dreaming" or Rapid Eye Movement stage. Cycling
through all four stages requires about 90 minutes. In a typical
eight-hour-sleep cycle, sleepers will proceed through about five
cycles. With sleep apnea, the lack of breathing slightly rouses
the sleeper so that the vast majority of sleep time is spent in
the early stages, with much less time spent in stages 3 and 4 or
REM sleep. This means that even if you are sleeping close to
eight hours per night, you can awake exhausted due to lack of
"deep" sleep with a profound sleep deficit.
More and more researchers have concluded that the Chronic Fatigue
(CFS) and Fibromyalgia (FMS) Syndromes may be variants of a sleep
disorder. Research has documented that CFS and FMS patients have
disrupted sleep. Moreover, when "normal" subjects have their
sleep disrupted for long enough, many will develop the exhaustion
and sequella, as well as the aches, pains, and tender points of
FMS.
The bottom line is that sleep apnea can profoundly worsen the
exhaustion, memory problems, and moodiness associated with
chronic pain. Sleep apnea can also dramatically worsen the actual
pain of a chronic pain condition. As long as the sleep apnea is
untreated, there may be very little you or your doctors can do to
make major progress with your pain and function. Talk to your
sleep partner about your sleeping habits. Ask your doctor about
sleep apnea. There are sleep centers everywhere that can assess
or rule out sleep apnea.
It is likely that about one in three people receiving this
newsletter have sleep apnea and don't know it. Do you?
As always, your feedback is welcome as are suggestions for future
newsletter topics.
Good light,
Dr. Tim
My Pain Relief Doc
http://www.mypainreliefdoc.com
Copyright 2006. Dr. Tim Sams and My Pain Relief Doc.
All rights reserved. http://www.mypainreliefdoc.com
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You may freely distribute a copy of this newsletter or
use it on your web site or RSS feed, as long as you
include the entire article, along with the web links
and copyright information. Thanks, Dr. Tim
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