WAKE UP to the dangers of sleep apnea!​

If you suspect that you have sleep apnea, the usual first step is to discuss your suspicions with your primary care physician.If you don’t have a primary care physician, you can go directly to a clinician who is a sleep specialist. But check your health care insurance coverage first.

Your primary care doctor might require a professional diagnosis of your sleep disorder. A definitive diagnosis of sleep apnea can be made only with a sleep study conducted during a visit to a sleep lab, usually overnight, or a home study performed with special equipment. 

A sleep study generates several records of activity during several hours of sleep, usually about six. Generally, these records include an electroencephalogram, or EEG, measuring brain waves; an electroculogram, or EOG, measuring eye and chin movements that signal the different stages of sleep; an electrocardiogram, EKG, measuring heart rate and rhythm; chest bands that measure respiration; and additional monitors that sense oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood and record leg movement. None of the devices is painful and there are no needles involved. 

The testing procedure as a whole is known formally as “polysomnography,” and the technician who supervises it is usually a “registered polysomnographic technologist,” or RPT. Usually the bedroom where the test is conducted is more like a comfortable hotel room than a hospital room.