Your family’s health history especially your parents can be a great indicator of potential health problems down the road. In my own case my father had heart disease and died from a heart attack, it wasn’t really surprising to find out that heart problems ran in his family. This information has been golden for me because I have made sure that my cholesterol and blood pressure has been in the normal range for quite a few years. But there are some illnesses like sleep apnea where you wouldn’t think that heredity would play a part in it, but it does. Unfortunately my father had sleep apnea and so do I.
Of course there is more than one factor that leads to sleep apnea; probably the main one is being overweight. When you put on the extra pounds some of them end up on your face and neck which in turn contributes to the blockage of the airway in the back of the throat. I’m not sure that being overweight is caused by heredity but some folks seem to think so.
The possible connection with regards to sleep apnea between my father and me is the shape of our faces. That seems strange but the shape of one’s face can cause sleep apnea. If the face is round and big this somehow can cause a blockage in the back of the throat. There seems to be some validity in that because his face was round like mine. What was also strange was that he wasn’t overweight at all.
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Weight plays a big part in the sleep apnea, the more you weight for people that have it the worse the sleep apnea.....and the more weight you gain. I was also told that a lot has to do with the tissue in the throat going SOUTH, like all the other parts of your body! Apparently that happens inside as well as out. At the same point I was told that I probably had this the better part of my life, as a teen because of my really loud snoring. My guess if that was the case, it was not much of an issue due to the fact I was tiny. As the yrs went on....and the weight went on, it got worse. I was told by my sleep dr. that the health issues that go hand in hand can include, acid reflux, IBS, asthma, migraines, Fibromylgia....and I have all of the above. Hand in hand with the fibro goes more sleep issue and being so tired, plus Raymaud (spelling) where the fingers turn blue and hurt. That I learned I now have. I just kind of wait for the next shoe to drop. Thanks for your blog.
ReplyDeleteHi Pam,
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about weight playing a big part in having sleep apnea especially the tissue in the back throat. I have been trying to lose weight myself since the beginning of the year. I think that it has helped some but I have a ways to go.
thanks for commenting
David