Sleep Apnea Overview

Man with Sleep Apnea

Struggling with Sleep Apnea?

You’re not breathing right as you sleep. You’re tired… all the time. You’re at risk for serious health problems. Learn the causes, symptoms, and how CPAP therapy can help you get the air – and sleep – you need to feel your best every day. CPAPMyWay.com can help you get tested for sleep apnea in your home and get started with CPAP therapy.

Whoever nudged you to find out about sleep apnea might have just saved your life.

Ranging from seconds to minutes, if you’re suffering from sleep apnea, you’re experiencing breathing interruptions all night, every night. It’s probably disturbing your sleep – and it’s almost a guarantee that it’s disturbing whoever’s trying to sleep with you. Quality sleep is one of the most important requirements of good health and a happy life, so while the bad news is that you might have sleep apnea… the good news is that you can get help – and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune.

Common Sleep Apnea Symptoms

You might not be aware of some of these common symptoms, so you might want to review this list with your bedmate to get a more accurate sense of whether sleep apnea is an issue for you. Do any of these sound like you?

  • It’s a constant battle to stay awake at work.
  • You just can’t seem to fall asleep – or stay asleep.
  • You’re having bad dreams when you finally do fall asleep.
  • You feel exhausted all the time.
  • Find yourself falling asleep at the wheel or at the stop light
  • You snore.
  • You breathe loudly when you’re asleep – or breathe through the mouth.
  • Sometimes you wake up suddenly with the feeling that you’re gasping for breath.
  • You’re feeling depressed.
  • Your mouth or throat feels dry.
  • You’re getting headaches frequently.
  • You feel irritable.
  • Your weight seems to be out of control.


What Causes Sleep Apnea? 

There you are trying to sleep. You finally drift off to sleep and suddenly, you’re not breathing – whether you’re aware of it or not.

What happened? Your throat, tongue, and mouth muscles have soft tissue that can relax and then cause an airway blockage, which means you’re not breathing. You might gasp and re-situate yourself in your sleep, opening the airway again – or you might just keep cycling through periods of not breathing all night long.

No surprise, one of the most common causes of sleep apnea is being overweight. The telltale sign is a large neck circumference, and it’s one of the most frequent symptoms that results in patients being referred for sleep studies and subsequently treated with CPAP therapy.

Getting a Sleep Apnea Diagnosis 

The best way to find out whether you’ve got sleep apnea is to undergo a sleep study. Your physician can order one – and you’d spend the night in a sleep study center, spend a boatload of money, and walk out with a prescription for a CPAP machine if it turns out you’ve got sleep apnea.

Or, you can save some serious time and money, and do it all in your own home. Simply order our Home Sleep Test Kit and we will send out a Sleep Test Kit for you to test in your own home for Sleep Apnea.

What You Need to Know about Sleep Study Cost 

Typically, lab sleep studies can cost $2000 plus. Not here at CPAPmyway. You can save as much as 90% off of the cost of a lab sleep study by going with our home sleep test. We’ll mail the test to you along with easy step-by-step instructions on how to do it. You just put the equipment on and go to sleep. It might not be the best sleep you’ve ever had, but it sure beats trying to fall asleep while you’re being watched through a glass window, lying on a strange bed, and hooked up to a bunch of electrodes. No pressure!  Our way is totally painless and easy.

The doctor will score your test, noting how many times you stopped breathing (AHI), make the diagnosis, and write a prescription for a CPAP machine, if you need one. You’ve got options – and we’ll help you understand them.

What will the Sleep Test Results show me?

Great Question! The Sleep Test Results will include a lot of detail about your breathing, sleep position, oxygen level, heart rate, and snoring. As well as many other important metrics. However, the most important thing that the Sleep Test will provide is your AHI, or Apnea Hypopnea Index. The AHI is the number of times per hour (on average) that you stop, or partially stop breathing. AHI is categorized in severity levels. Under 5 being Normal, 5-15 is Mild Sleep Apnea, 15-30 is Moderate Sleep Apnea, and 30+ being Severe Sleep Apnea. This will give you a baseline of how bad your Sleep Apnea is.

Effective Sleep Apnea Treatment 

The recommended treatment for sleep apnea is to use a CPAP device. CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. The CPAP is a simple device that uses pressure to keep your airways open. The great thing about Modern CPAP Devices is that they record the clinical data, and in most cases, will send that data to you in an easy to understand report. This allows you to see how well the CPAP is working for you. The report even includes your current AHI on CPAP. So the Sleep Test will show you the AHI without CPAP, and the reporting from your CPAP will show you your AHI on CPAP. Validating that the CPAP is treating your Sleep Apnea.

The CPAP device connects to a simple mask that you wear. The masks can be as minimal as two little nostril buds resting on the outside of your nostrils with a single little strap. You wear the mask and the CPAP keeps your airway open as you sleep by blowing a gentle stream of air continuously.

Lifestyle changes can help, too, including losing weight. Even if you are already trying to lose weight you may find that proper sleep on CPAP can really boost those efforts. It’s pretty tough to stay active when you aren’t sleeping properly.

Your Sleep Apnea Equipment 

To start, you’ll need a CPAP Starter Bundle which includes everything – your mask, the cushions, tubing, filters, and the CPAP machine. Some of these components will last a long time – and others will need to be replaced frequently to maintain the integrity of your CPAP system. We are here to help with that as well with our Basic CPAP Supply Bundles. The Supply Bundles make replacing those supplies much easier and much cheaper.

We believe you should have a choice about your CPAP supplies – and that you shouldn’t have to wade through an ocean of red tape or spend a fortune to get them. Order just what you need – when you need it.

If you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask. We’re here to help.