Resolved question:
Hi,I recently just had sleep study done a few weeks ago and they told me that I have sleep
apnea I kinda thought I did before the study b/c I had some people said that I snore very loud.Anyway I don't know if they found anything in the sleep study except that I have sleep
apnea I wont know until later into the week if they found anything else besides that I have apnea.And I just google this up sleep apnea you could have pulmonary hypertension along
with the sleep apnea its a possibly b/c some people have that condition.I don't know how common that is if you can please tell me is sleep apnea very common with pulmonary hypertension or is it half of the people that have apnea, lower than half what percentage of sleep apnea havepulmonary hypertension?I just know I have severe sleep apnea and I find out later in the week if they found anything else in the study or not?And also one more thing I was just at my family doctor last week he gave me a blood test and he just called me told me all of
my blood work is good he tested lots of things one of the things he tested was throid he said the results were good from my blood work.so if my blood work was good does that mean I could still havepulmonary hypertension from my sleep apnea or do I have a good chance that I wont have pulmonary hypertension since my blood work came out good.Thanks.
Submitted:
4 Days
Category:
ICU/ Critical Care Specialist
Dear Patient,
Thank you for using Doctor Spring to clear your medical query. Sleep apnoea is a condition in which the patient does not get adequate oxygen during his sleep. It is associated with various complications like Heart Problems, stroke, increased blood pressure, uncontrolled sugar levels etc. Sleep Apnoea of longer duration also develop pulmonary hypertension. But we have to treat it because of associate problems.
Well, I am happy that the condition was detected early in its course and hence we can plan preventive therapies early on which would be more effective. However to provide the treatment, i need to know the exact AHI (Apnoea - Hypopnea index) .For an AHI of 5 or so we can ignore it, and if its more than 5, we need to intervene. Mild cases may respond to weight reduction, correction of nasal allergies, surgery to remove tonsils etc and some patients may require CPAP/ BIPAP for sleeping.
CPAP / BIPAP is to be titrated against the pressures required and used regularly. In regard to your question - what percentage of people develop PH? . There are no Randomised control studies, nor do we expect since it will be unethical to follow up a patient with definite risks without intervening. As already mentioned, it is the brain and heart effects, other than pulmonary hypertension per se that requires treatment.
In regard to your last part of the query - all the problems of sleep apnoea develops over a period of time. Hence you may find all reports normal. However i would still advice intervention because it’s better to prevent than treat any complications of the same.
Please feel free to clarify any doubts during follow up. I hope i have answered your query satisfactorily.
Regards
Dr.Jacob George