Why More Women Are Getting Screened for Sleep Apnea

You wake up with a headache. You got a full eight hours of sleep, but it seems impos­si­ble to stay awake dur­ing the day. You’ve always been a light snor­er, but recent­ly your snor­ing has been dis­rup­tive to your sleep partner. 

It’s nor­mal to have days where you feel tired or nights of heavy snor­ing while you fight off a cold or cel­e­brat­ed too much. But when they are hap­pen­ing fre­quent­ly, it could be a sign of a dis­or­der called sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is a dis­or­der that caus­es you to tem­porar­i­ly stop breath­ing while asleep. The most com­mon form of sleep apnea is called obstruc­tive sleep apnea (OSA). It hap­pens when there’s a prob­lem with your air­way and the mus­cles in your throat can’t keep your air­way open while you sleep. As your air­way clos­es, oxy­gen lev­els in your blood may drop. The com­bi­na­tion of this can lead to dis­rup­tions in your sleep, some­times even full awakenings. 

Any­thing that can nar­row or block your upper air­way may increase your risk for OSA. The most com­mon risk fac­tor is obe­si­ty. How­ev­er, struc­tur­al abnor­mal­i­ties that affect the throat, smok­ing, med­i­cines and med­ical con­di­tions, and old­er age may also impact your air­way. Since men have a high­er risk for OSA than women, it used to be thought of as a ​“male” dis­ease. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. 

As aware­ness of sleep apnea in women has grown, more women are get­ting test­ed. Here are sev­er­al rea­sons why – and what you can do if you have sleep apnea and snore. 

Increased Recog­ni­tion That Symp­toms of OSA May Look Dif­fer­ent in Women

OSA is under­diag­nosed in both men and women, but more so in women. One of the main rea­sons is that women’s symp­toms aren’t always as obvi­ous. Some symp­toms are the same across the board, such as the tell­tale loud snor­ing, vis­i­bly not breath­ing at cer­tain points dur­ing sleep, day­time tired­ness, and snort­ing, gasp­ing, or chok­ing while sleep­ing. But there are some symp­toms that are less com­mon in men.

Learn about sleep studies. 

Aware­ness of OSA and Women’s Health Issues

Preg­nan­cy and OSA

When you’re preg­nant, the struc­ture and func­tion of your throat can be affect­ed. There can also be changes in the hor­mones that affect breath­ing. These changes can increase your risk of devel­op­ing OSA or make exist­ing sleep apnea worse. 

OSA dur­ing preg­nan­cy can con­tribute to (or make worse) com­pli­ca­tions like high blood pres­sure, ges­ta­tion­al dia­betes (dia­betes that occurs only dur­ing preg­nan­cy), and oth­er preg­nan­cy issues. 

There is good news. Many sleep apnea treat­ments (like CPAP machines) are safe to use dur­ing preg­nan­cy, and treat­ing OSA dur­ing preg­nan­cy can low­er the risk of com­pli­ca­tions. And, while sleep apnea doesn’t always dis­ap­pear after giv­ing birth, the symp­toms often improve. 

A Word From Our Provider

“I try to impress upon patients that your sleep is essen­tial for good health and a good qual­i­ty of life. Test­ing is eas­i­ly obtained and we can do much test­ing in the com­fort of your home these days. I would like to empha­size that CPAP is very effec­tive and much eas­i­er to tol­er­ate com­pared to the past. 

I have many patients who could not tol­er­ate CPAP 15 years ago and found it cum­ber­some, who when treat­ed with new CPAP machines with new masks, found it to be much improved and eas­i­er tol­er­at­ed. There are bet­ter alter­na­tives than what we had in the past. 

Ulti­mate­ly, one of the most impor­tant things we do is help patients feel con­fi­dent and com­fort­able about their health and care.” 

– Dr. Ravi Nemi­vant, MD, Sleep med­i­cine physi­cian at Duly Health and Care

Ready to reclaim your ener­gy and sleep sound­ly again? Our Sleep Med­i­cine team at Duly Health and Care offers com­pre­hen­sive test­ing and treat­ment options right here in your com­mu­ni­ty. Call to sched­ule an appoint­ment with a sleep spe­cial­ist to explore solu­tions tai­lored to you.

Find sleep med­i­cine providers near you >

Menopause and OSA

After menopause, loss of repro­duc­tive hor­mones like prog­es­terone and estro­gen can increase your risk of OSA. Post­menopausal women are two to three times more like­ly than pre­menopausal women to devel­op sleep apnea. 

OSA that begins dur­ing or after menopause is easy to miss, since many of the symp­toms of OSA and menopause over­lap. If you’re hav­ing symp­toms like day­time sleepi­ness, trou­ble sleep­ing, or increased snor­ing, let your provider know. 

Poly­cys­tic Ovary Syn­drome (PCOS) and OSA

PCOS is a con­di­tion that affects hor­mones dur­ing repro­duc­tive years, and it increas­es your risk of devel­op­ing oth­er med­ical con­di­tions, includ­ing OSA. One rea­son is that PCOS can lead to prob­lems like weight gain and obe­si­ty. PCOS can cause mul­ti­ple hor­mon­al changes that can effect sleep qual­i­ty and increase the risk for sleep apnea. 

Also read: Poly­cys­tic Ovary Syn­drome: What to Expect From PCOS

What to Do If You Snore: Treat­ment for OSA

Whether your snor­ing is thun­der­ing across the house or just bare­ly notice­able, it’s crit­i­cal to get treat­ed for OSA. If it’s not man­aged, OSA can lead to sig­nif­i­cant com­pli­ca­tions, like glu­cose intol­er­ance and meta­bol­ic syn­drome, high blood pres­sure, and in severe cas­es, untreat­ed sleep apnea can increase the risk of stroke, heart rhythm changes and pos­si­bly car­dio­vas­cu­lar events. Lack of treat­ment of OSA can also lead to wors­en­ing con­trol of car­diac con­di­tions like heart failure. 

Also, even if you don’t snore, OSA can cause exces­sive day­time sleepi­ness. This can put you in dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions, like falling asleep behind the wheel or while oper­at­ing machinery.

Treat­ment is gen­er­al­ly the same for both women and men. One of the most com­mon and the most effec­tive treat­ments for OSA is a con­tin­u­ous pos­i­tive air­way pres­sure (CPAP) machine, which keeps your air­way open while you sleep. CPAP has become much more com­fort­able and eas­i­er to tol­er­ate with the var­i­ous masks and with how the machines cur­rent­ly func­tion. There are oth­er ways to treat OSA, including:

• Inspire®: A small device implant­ed under the skin of your chest con­nect­ed to wires implant­ed in the mus­cles around the throat that pre­vents the mus­cles from relax­ing and keeps your air­way open while you sleep.
• Oral appli­ance: A mouth­piece you wear dur­ing sleep that pulls your jaw and tongue for­ward to open your airway. 
• Lifestyle changes: Los­ing weight, quit­ting smok­ing, lim­it­ing alco­hol use, avoid­ing sleep­ing pills, or sleep­ing on your side.
• Zep­bound® (tirzepatide): Injectable weight loss med­ica­tion recent­ly approved for treat­ing mod­er­ate to severe OSA. 
• Surgery: Pro­ce­dures like remov­ing soft tis­sue in your throat or adjust­ing your jaw to address the struc­tur­al caus­es of OSA. Addi­tion­al­ly, the weight loss expe­ri­enced through bariatric surgery can help to treat sleep apnea . 

Also read: Inspire, a New Treat­ment for Obstruc­tive Sleep Apnea

If you have symp­toms like day­time sleepi­ness, insom­nia, wak­ing up in the mid­dle of the night gasp­ing for breath, or loud snor­ing, talk to your provider.

They may rec­om­mend get­ting a sleep study to test for sleep apnea, and they can help you find ways to get the sleep you need.