Dr. Michael Grandner

And

It's actually mostly fine in that you can have four or five breathing pauses per hour in the night and be in the normal range.

It's actually sleep apnea doesn't begin at five is mild begins the low end of mild.

And it's not even until you get to 15 per hour that it becomes start becoming moderate.

So many people who are in the mild range don't even have any symptoms and might not be causing any problems.

And we have a lot of flexibility in the system, but.

as you get older and neuromuscular control changes, as we put on more pressure here in the airway by gaining weight or whatever, it just becomes more and more common.

And my guess is it's actually been common through history.

It's just, we've written it off as something else, especially in people that don't have those obvious signs.

So what are some of those less than obvious signs?

I have a patient who comes in and they say,

I fall asleep just fine.

Actually, if I'm anything, I'm a little tired during the day.

Whatever.

I fall asleep just fine.

But then I wake up in the middle of the night because of stress.

My stress wakes me up.

And then I have a hard time falling back asleep.

When I hear that, I think there's greater than 50-50 chance in my mind that that was a respiratory event.

Stress doesn't wake you up.