Sick and tired: Sleep disorders are taking a toll

Sleep apnea is a risk factor for stroke, high blood pressure, heart disease, acid reflux and depression. It may trigger arrythmias. Patients with sleep apnea may also develop thickening of the heart.

But studies at LDS Hospital show heart function can improve in about six months with treatment. Researchers also believe there's a link between its intermittent hypoxia and the release of stress hormones that trigger inflammation, implicated in atherosclerosis.

Sleep apnea patients are very often, though not always, overweight. Losing weight may resolve it for patients who are heavy. Someone who is skinny may have sleep apnea because of a small jaw or an overbite, for instance. They may require jaw or palate surgery.

Not everyone who snores has sleep apnea. And not everyone with sleep apnea snores, says Shilling.

When Finch was diagnosed in 1997, he tried the CPAP mask, which is a standard treatment for the condition. But he couldn't get used to it. He tried a surgery that helped for some years. When the problem came back, Jones convinced him to retry CPAP, which has become more compact and user-friendly over the years. This time, he's adapted to it.

Murdock likes CPAP's results so much that he had an adaptor put into the back of his van so he can take it along when he goes camping. Teeples modified his own CPAP mask to make it more comfortable and now couldn't imagine life without it. When he wears it and gets good sleep, he feels rested. "As kids say now, 'Duh! If you feel better, use it.' "

There are other, less well-known sleep disorders. Up to 10 percent of children and adults have restless leg syndrome, and experts believe so-called "growing pains" may be a manifestation of that disorder, in which moving your legs provides relief. It often runs in families. In other cases, it appears to be an iron-transport issue, and doctors look for iron deficiency. Iron is key to the movement controls in the brain. Treatment may include medications similar to those prescribed for Parkinson's disease. Other conditions like neuropathy and leg cramps — which have their own causes — must be ruled out. And some medications and common substances like caffeine make it worse. But if it doesn't interfere with sleep or bother the individual, it needn't be treated at all, Dupont says.

Another movement-based sleep problem is "periodic limb movement," a condition in which limbs twitch overnight. That's detected with a sleep study. Often, patients wake up and don't know why; it can be subtle. Besides having sleep apnea, Finch also takes a medication often used for Parkinson's disease to control his limb movements.

If the problem is simply a biological clock that's out of whack, it may be possible to reset it. That means choosing a wake-up time and getting up then every single day, no exceptions. Naps are forbidden. If you can't sleep at first, you will over time. The brain starts to cooperate. But it takes about six weeks to reset the clock. And Shilling says few patients are willing to take the time to change their life completely. A lot of them want a simpler solution, like a sleeping pill.

Just as traveling east is harder than traveling west from a sleep point of view, it's harder to force people to go to sleep earlier, Dupont warns.

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E-mail: lois@desnews.com