Sleep Testing – Allen Park, MI

Are you sure you’re sleeping through the night? If you’re not getting enough rest because a sleep disorder is constantly waking you up, the constant drowsiness will start to have a negative impact on the quality of your life; you could also suffer from heart problems and other health complications. That’s why if you think you might have sleep apnea or a similar condition, you should make an appointment with Dr. Stankiewicz to ask about sleep testing to diagnose the problem.

Common Sleep Conditions

One of the most common disorders that make your nights restless is sleep apnea. This is where you frequently stop breathing while you’re asleep and need to wake up briefly to get some oxygen. (You might not remember these awakenings because they happen very fast.) Most sleep apnea is the result of some sort of physical obstruction of the airway, such as a collapse of the soft tissues near your throat; in rare cases, the issue might come from a failure of the brain to properly control the muscles responsible for breathing.

Of course, there are other conditions that can keep you up at night as well, which is why sleep testing is necessary to determine the real cause of your symptoms.

Testing & Diagnosing

You can have sleep testing done in a laboratory or you might have it performed at home, depending on what you’re comfortable with.

When testing is performed at a sleep center, you’ll be hooked up to special equipment that can measure your heart, lung and brain activity, breathing patterns, limb movements, and blood oxygen levels. These results will tell us whether you’re continuing to breathe normally throughout the night or if there’s any additional strain on your cardiovascular system as a result of a lack of oxygen.

If you have trouble sleeping in an unfamiliar laboratory (which can naturally make it very hard to study your sleep behavior), you might receive a simplified test that can be used at home. This normally involves a device that can measure your heart rate, airflow and breathing patterns. If the results are abnormal, it’s normally a sign of a sleep disorder, and we can then move forward with an appropriate form of treatment.

Treatment Options

If you are found to have sleep apnea, Dr. Stakiewicz can help relieve your symptoms with a sleep apnea appliance. There are many kinds of oral appliances you can get depending on the structure of your mouth and the underlying cause of the disorder. For example, EMA appliances reposition the lower jaw and open the bite to enhance airflow, while SomnoDent appliances hold the tongue, tonsils and adenoids in place to stop them from obstructing the airway.

If your partner complains that you snore, it could be a sign of sleep apnea. Call Dr. Stankiewicz right away and ask about sleep testing; the sooner you do, the sooner you can start enjoying sweet dreams again.