The Heart of the Problem with Snoring

Sleep apnea, a disease marked by loud snoring, gaps in breathing and gasping for air while asleep, is on the rise, warns St. Joseph’s chief of Cardiology Dr. Stephen Pollock.

“It’s more than a pulmonary disease,” he adds. “It makes people feel tired, and they fall asleep early or at odd times, but even more significant is that when a person’s oxygen levels go down from sleep apnea, it affects the heart. It can cause rhythm abnormalities such as atrial fibrillation and even periods of heart failure.”

“Dangerous,” is how Dr. Jason Marx, director of The Sleep Disorders Center at St. Joseph, describes sleep apnea, adding that “it increases risk of high blood pressure and strokes.”

With sleep apnea, a person’s airway is blocked when the soft tissue in the back of their neck relaxes during sleep. “It’s very important to get the right treatment, and that treatment is the CPAP mask,” emphasizes Pollock. The mask or nose plugs keep a person’s airways open by using continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) pumped in through the nose.

The result is better sleep and heart health—patients’ high blood pressure often comes down, and they can decrease their medication.

The first step to having sleep apnea diagnosed, says Marx, is to consult your doctor, who may order a polysomnography, a painless overnight test, performed at St. Joseph’s Sleep Disorders Center by trained sleep technicians.