Fighting For Breath - Asthma And Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Until you get a handle on what's causing your discomfort, pain will continue to disrupt your sleep. Nighttime pain management can be a tricky business; the very medication that helps relieve pain may also ultimately interfere with sleep patterns.
Also sleep deprivation lowers your pain threshold. But finding effective pain management is important because if you lose too much sleep for too many nights, your job performance and outlook can suffer.
People suffering form chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) literally have to fight for every breath, while asthmatics usually experience a sudden acute onset of breathing difficulties.
Sleeping can bring its own particular set of problems because lying down can make breathing more difficult for some COPD patients, and then coughing, wheezing and chest tightness fo asthma can also disrupt sleep.
People with COPD not only suffer from sleep disruptions but also the quality and quantity of their overall sleep is diminished. The bronchodilators and steroids they take to help them breath can interfere with sleep as well.
Some people with COPD also suffer from sleep apnea. This "overlap syndrome" compounds their problems. People with asthma have their own set of sleeping difficulties. Asthmatics may have trouble falling asleep, suffer from nocturnal coughing lags and may wake up too early.
Asthma responds to circadian rhythms and sensitivity to irritants that can trigger asthma attacks is much greater at night. Individuals with asthma often experience significant daytime fatigue and exhaustion if their sleep quality is poor.
Of course, the granddaddy of all sleep-related breathing problems is sleep apnea or sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). A patient with sleep apnea may stop breathing hundreds of times each night, a situation that not only disrupts sleep but deprives the body of oxygen and increase the risk of developing heart disease.
When patients with COPD enter the REM sleep, they experience a significant decrease in their oxygen saturation.
Because many of these patients are already at the limits of their respiratory capacity due to the disease, even small falls in oxygen tension can provoke a large decline in oxygenation. This decrease makes the patient hypoxic, with potentially serious consequences.
Hypoxia means low oxygen. When a person is hypoxic, they don't have enough oxygen reaching the body's tissues.
Hypoxia can be caused by damaged or diseased lungs that don't take in and distribute enough oxygen, damage red blood cells that can't carry sufficient oxygen to the body's tissues, or damaged circulation that prevents oxygenated blood from reaching body tissues.
The more severe your asthma, the more frequently breathing problems will awaken you. Acid reflux or heartburn at night can add to your difficulties by causing choking or spasms of bronchial tubes.
When patients with breathing problems lie down at night, they may experience a sensation of choking or not being able to catch their breath. As a result, patients with COPD or asthma may attach significant fear of lying down and going to sleep.
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