How to diagnose sleep apnea?

How to diagnose sleep apnea? In this video, Jeffrey E. Baylor, M.D., F.A.C.S., a board-certified otolaryngologist at the Ear, Nose, Throat & Plastic Surgery Associates describes how he determines if a patient has sleep apnea as well as simple clues people can look out for on their own.

“Sleep apnea can be diagnosed with something as simple as someone observing you while you sleep to see what happens,” says Dr. Baylor. “Most of the time patients will come in to see me because their spouse or significant other will tell them first of all that they are snoring very loudly. But the second thing is that at times they are pausing their breathing. When we see that, it means we need to investigate further.”

Dr. Baylor points out that small amounts of pausing during breathing can be normal. But if it’s anything beyond that then your ear, nose and throat doctor will need to do a sleep study to find out if you have significant sleep apnea.

“Nowadays, sleep studies can be performed in a sleep lab, where you go to a particular place, and they monitor your sleeping overnight, to see if you stop breathing,” says Dr. Baylor. “During that study, they also check your oxygen levels to see how low the levels sink if you are indeed holding your breath, and they also check your brain waves.”

“Many insurance companies now have people do home sleep studies,” Dr. Baylor continues. “And those are nice because you get to do it in your own bed. They bring you all the equipment, teach you how to use it, you sleep with it for one night, and then they take the equipment back from you and send us a report. From that data, we can decide if you do have sleep apnea and how we can treat it.”

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