Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Sleep apnea and neck size

There are many contributing factors to sleep apnea and they all seem to lead to the blockage of your airway. Enlarged tongues are a perfect example of something that can contribute to sleep apnea as well as excess skin tissue inside the throat. Something else to consider is the size of your neck.

You may think that having a large neck is exclusively due to being overweight. Studies have shown that non obese people with large necks have a higher rate of sleep apnea then expected. Usually a size of 17 inches in men and 16 inches in women are common signs of sleep apnea. And that seems to be prevalent in middle-aged men with large necks.


Having a receding chin and a short but thick neck has also been found with sleep apnea patients. Especially with a receding chin this seems to limit the space for the tongue. A narrow throat can also be a cause of sleep apnea.

Overall weight loss can help lessen the severity of sleep apnea but might not be enough to eliminate it. The use of a cpap machine or surgery may be needed.

If you feel that you have sleep apnea or disrupted sleep contact your doctor who may want to send you on to a sleep study.

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5 comments:

  1. Great blog! I'm a dentist and I have a sleep apnea blog as well. http://stopsleepapnea.info/blog/ Check it out and let me know what you think. I'm going to add your blog to my RSS feed. Keep up the good work. Sleep apnea is a problem that needs to be addressed in a much greater fashion.

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  2. It looks good! Thanks for adding my blog to your RSS feed.
    David

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