Daytime Sleepiness
Your sleepiness could be a sinister sign
Are you living your days in a daze? You don’t have to let the zombie-like shroud of exhaustion suck the life out of life. Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDS) is often tied to an issue with your Breathing Triangle: the crucial zone of your nose and throat. Like despicable thieves, snoring, nighttime congestion, sinusitis, mouth-breathing, and sleep apnea could be secretly robbing you of restful sleep and energy.
It’s time to confront these thieves and reclaim your vigor.
Daytime sleepiness is a productivity killer
Daytime sleepiness is a tug-of-war between constantly feeling tired, yet never being able to sleep enough to feel rested. You always feel drained, yet become more lethargic with inactivity. Your days are filled with brain-fog which sabotages productivity, yet your endless “to do list” taunts you at night. With 40% of adult Americans1 sleep-deprived, averaging two hours less sleep each night than 50 years ago, it's a common issue. Remarkably, Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is often the cause of excessive daytime sleepiness and road accidents2. But there is hope, because OSA is easily treated.
Do I suffer from daytime sleepiness?
Having trouble keeping your eyes open right now? Then the answer may be ‘yes.’ Excessive Daytime Sleepiness remains underdiagnosed, underappreciated, and understudied. And our always-on, screen-focused, work-centered culture distracts us from prioritizing sleep. It’s no wonder why millions normalize the feeling of constant fatigue and are blinded from recognizing when daytime sleepiness could be a sign of a chronic condition—like obstructive sleep apnea.
Obstructive sleep apnea is a chronic sleep disorder where the upper airway collapses frequently during sleep, resulting in intermittent suffocation and roof-rattling snoring. You basically suffocate momentarily as you sleep, until your body jolts itself awake so you can gasp for oxygen.
“Folks who have sleep apnea who aren’t getting treated, it’s not just the sleep part that you’re missing. That part is certainly ruining your life and that’s going to continue to happen. But the additional side effects: the heart disease, heart attacks, diabetes, erectile dysfunction, dementia… if you’re in that majority of folks who aren’t seeking treatment, those ticking time bombs will explode on you,” cautions Madan Kandula, MD, board-certified Otolaryngologist, Sinus and Sleep Surgeon.
Is daytime sleepiness a sign of something dangerous?
Chronic daytime sleepiness caused by obstructive sleep apnea can take a serious toll on your health and can lead to:
- Cardiovascular3 and heart disease5,
- High blood pressure6
- Stroke
- Obesity, diabetes and insulin resistance7
- Anxiety, depression and memory impairment
More critically, conditions like obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) can usher in severe health issues5,6,7. The cost? A staggering $95 billion in healthcare8 and a $411 billion hole in the U.S. economy9 annually.
How is daytime sleepiness treated?
Managing daytime sleepiness depends on its root cause. If it’s sleep apnea, the first-line treatment is ensuring that your nasal airways including your nose and sinuses are working properly. You then have a better chance of successful treatment with minimally invasive solutions like oral appliance therapy to optimize your nighttime breathing.
ADVENT Can Help
3 simple steps to getting the energy you crave:
1: Get Your Breathing Triangle Evaluation
First, we listen. At your new patient appointment, you’ll discuss your symptoms and goals with a Sleep & Sinus Specialist. You’ll also get a thorough Breathing Triangle Evaluation to help identify any underlying issues.
2: Uncover the Root Cause
Depending on your symptoms you may get an in-office CT scan or home sleep study to better understand the source of your daytime sleepiness.
3: Treat Your Daytime Sleepiness with Simple Solutions
We offer several simple in-office options to ensure you have a healthy Breathing Triangle and to address your daytime sleepiness. Depending on your diagnosis, you may be a candidate for: Balloon Sinuplasty, Turbinate Reduction, Nasal Cryotherapy, Oral Appliance Therapy or CPAP.
Daytime sleepiness FAQs:
You may be sleep deprived from too little sleep, or tired because your sleep was fragmented. If you consistently feel sleepy during the day for several weeks, it could be beneficial to see a doctor to talk about your symptoms.
Short-term daytime sleepiness that results from a few nights of short or interrupted sleep could impact your reaction time, mood, ability to focus, make you more prone to making mistakes, and could put you at risk for drowsy driving.
You might, especially if your daytime sleepiness is chronic and excessive, but only a thorough evaluation by your doctor or, preferably, a sleep specialist or ENT doctor can tell you for sure.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is one of the most prevalent sleep disorders among adults. One study conducted multi-night sleep studies on over 67,000 adults, and found that 23% of participants had OSA11.
The best treatment for your daytime sleepiness depends on the cause. If you experience daytime sleepiness after a night or two of shortened or fragmented sleep, you could benefit from improving your sleep hygiene and even taking a low dose of melatonin to help you fall asleep.
“ADVENT’s approach to daytime sleepiness treatment differs from other ENT clinics and doctors because we focus on treating the root-cause of the problem, often determined by a Breathing Triangle® evaluation in conjunction with an at-home sleep study, and then use simple in-office procedures and/or devices to produce lasting results,” says Jacob Daniels, PA-C.
There are 6 common reasons why adults experience insomnia, including stress, taking too many naps, your sleep environment, and more.
Read more about these reasons, and what you can do if you can't fall asleep at night.
"ADVENT takes your daytime sleepiness complaints seriously. You will be recommended to have a home sleep study and we will then sit down and review the results with you and talk about treatment options."
Hillary Hinkson, PA-C
"ADVENT’s approach to daytime sleepiness treatment differs from other ENT clinics and doctors because we focus on treating the root-cause of the problem, often determined by a Breathing Triangle evaluation in conjunction with an at-home sleep study, and then use simple in-office procedures and/or devices to produce lasting results."
Jacob Daniels, PA-C
"Daytime sleepiness or fatigue is multifactorial as sleep can be affected by many aspects of one's life. It is important to be evaluated by a healthcare professional to see if there are any airway issues including sleep apnea and possibly have a sleep study done."
Megan Berendes, PA-C
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References
- Sleep Facts. The Center for Sleep Medicine. Accessed 2023 June 6. https://www.sleepmedcenter.com/sleep-facts/
- Garbarino, S., Guglielmi, O., Sanna, A., et al. (2016). Risk of Occupational Accidents in Workers with Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, SLEEP, June 39(6), 1211-1218. https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article/39/6/1211/2453952
- Laura Pérez-Carbonell, Emmanuel Mignot, Guy Leschziner, Yves Dauvilliers, Understanding and approaching excessive daytime sleepiness, The Lancet, 400, 10357, (2022). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0140673622010182
- Brown, J., & Makker, H. K. (2020). An approach to excessive daytime sleepiness in adults. The British Medical Journal (Clinical Research Edition), 368, m1047. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32220833/
- Bhanu Prakash Kolla, Jian-Ping He, Meghna P. Mansukhani, Mark A. Frye, Kathleen Merikangas, Excessive sleepiness and associated symptoms in the U.S. adult population: prevalence, correlates, and comorbidity, Sleep Health, 6, 1, (2020). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352721819302104
- Michael H. Bonnet, Donna L. Arand, Clinical effects of sleep fragmentation versus sleep deprivation, Sleep Medicine Reviews, 7, 4 (2003). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S108707920190245X
- Orzel-Gryglewssa, J. Consequences of Sleep Deprivation, Int J of Occup Med and Environmental Health, 23, 1 (2010). http://oldwww.imp.lodz.pl/upload/oficyna/artykuly/pdf/full/2010/1_Orzel.pdf
- Lutsey, P, McClelland, R, Duprez, D et al. Objectively Measured Sleep Characteristics and Prevalence of Coronary Artery Calcification: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis Sleep Study, Thorax, (2015). https://thorax.bmj.com/content/70/9/880.short
- Marin, JM., Agusti, A., Villar, I., et al. Association Between Treated and Untreated Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Risk of Hypertension. JAMA: National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine. (2012) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/1167315
- Aurora, R., Punjabi, N. (2007). Sleep Apnea and Metabolic Dysfunction: Cause or Co-Relation? Sleep Med Clin. June 1; 2(2), 237-250. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1556407X07000380
- Huyett P, Bhattacharyya, N. (2021). Incremental Health Care Utilization and Expenditures for Sleep Disorders in the United States. J Clin Sleep Med, 17(10), 1981-1986. https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/full/10.5664/jcsm.9392
- Hafner, M., Stepanek, M., Taylor, J., et al. (2016). Why Sleep Matters: The Economic Costs of Insufficient Sleep. A Cross Country Comparative Analysis. RAND Corporation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5627640/
- Bittencourt, L, Silva, R, Santos, R, Pires, M, Mello, M. Excessive Daytime Sleepiness. Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry. 27, 1, (2005). https://www.scielo.br/j/rbp/a/vpFsp6ThNQqLSPDCkThKS3q/?lang=en&format=html
- Lechat B, Naik G, Reynolds A, Aishah A, Scott H, Loffler KA, Vakulin A, Escourrou P, McEvoy RD, Adams RJ, Catcheside PG, Eckert DJ. Multinight Prevalence, Variability, and Diagnostic Misclassification of Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2022 Mar 1, 205, 5. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34904935/
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