Home Treatment of Sleep Apnea
If You Have Mild Sleep Apnea This May Be An Option

Sleep apnea can wreck your sleep and mess up your day.  Moderate to severe apnea requires treatment by a doctor.  However, mild apnea, meaning you have five or fewer episodes an hour, may mean you can look into home treatment of sleep apnea.  Treating yourself at home with or without the use of a CPAP and positive airway pressure therapy, which can be somewhat obstructive to sleep, can allow you to sleep better.  You can usually find a suitable sleep apnea treatment that you can do at home.

For mild apnea, the first thing you need to do is evaluate your overall health and physical fitness level.  If you are overweight, lose weight.  The majority of people who have sleep apnea are overweight.  Losing weight has been proven to reduce the times a night that you stop breathing.  Alcohol and sedatives make symptoms worse.  While both may make you fall asleep, these substances induce an unnatural sleep.  Get plenty of sleep.  You should also sleep on your side.  Most people with apnea have more instances of not breathing when they are on their backs.  Sew a tennis ball into a pocket in the back of your pajamas so that the pressure of the ball in your back prompts you to sleep on your side.  This has been proven as an positive and effective treatment for mild apnea.

Even if you have moderate to severe apnea, you can still take control of your sleep disorder and seek treatment at home.  You will just have your doctor as your partner.  You doctor can prescribe a continuous positive airway pressure machine for you to use at home when you sleep.  The continuous positive airway pressure machine, or CPAP, forces air through the airway past tissue that may be obstructive to your breathing. The CPAP is a device that you can use at home.  You will need a doctor’s prescription to get it, but you can manage and maintain the CPAP and undergo CPAP treatment in the comfort of your own home.  Lack of muscle tone in the nose and throat area can also be obstructive and contribute to the obstructive apnea.  However, this can often be corrected with surgery.

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About The Author:
Kerri Iamele is a successful author and regular contributor to sleep-disorders-help.com.