Sleep disorders can affect your life and trigger disease. Insomnia, restless leg syndrome, daytime sleepiness, and sleep apnea are the most common sleep problems. These can also be linked to obesity or poor control of other diseases such as diabetes.
Your lifestyle is an important factor in sleep disorders, and better controlling your habits can help.
Before your bariatric surgery, it is important to know which sleep disorder you have. Obesity can cause sleep apnea, which is when breathing stops repeatedly throughout the night. The muscles in your neck and torso relax at night, which means that any extra tissue will apply extra pressure to these areas. This leads to variable periods of breathing cessation.
Without your noticing it, your brain wakes you up several times an hour to take in air. You then wake up just as tired as when you went to sleep. Since your body never truly rests, this creates problems with mood control and cardiovascular health. Take the self-questionnaire below to find out if you may have sleep apnea.
Using the scale below, choose the number that matches each situation for you.
0: No chance of dozing off or falling asleep
1: Slight chance of dozing off or falling asleep
2: Moderate chance of dozing off or falling asleep
3: High chance of dozing off or falling asleep
Situations
How likely are you to doze off or fall asleep in the following situations, in contrast to feeling just tired? Give yourself a score of 0, 1, 2 or 3 for each situation.
Add the total of your answers: __________
Medigas (sleep apnea equipment)
Sleep Clinic at the Hôpital de la Cité-de-la-Santé: 450-975-5343