Originally Posted On: https://thesleepdetective.com/post/sleep-apnea-vs-insomnia

Sleep apnea vs insomnia: Sleep issues may be more than insomnia

Sleep apnea and insomnia are two different issues. You can have one or the other or both.

They are different but they can have similar causes.

In my latest article for the Jackson Hole News and Guide, you’ll learn:

-the difference between sleep apnea and insomnia and how to know if you have both

-how sleep apnea and insomnia can have the same root causes

-how functional medicine can help with both disorders

I use functional lab testing to uncover what’s keeping you from sleeping normally, whether you have insomnia or sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea vs insomnia: Sleep issues may be more than insomnia

Sleep apnea and insomnia are two different issues. You can have just one or both.

They are different but they can have similar causes.

In this blog post, you’ll learn the difference, so you know what’s causing your sleep issues.

This post was written by me (Martha Lewis) and also published in the Jackson Hole News & Guide. Feel free to read it here on my website or on their publication’s website page.

How to know if you have insomnia

If you take a long time to fall asleep, you have insomnia.

If you wake up in the middle of the night and take a long time to fall back asleep, you have insomnia.

If you wake up too early in the morning and can’t go back to sleep, you have insomnia.

If you have any trouble sleeping and you don’t wake up feeling rested, you have insomnia.

How to know if you have sleep apnea

Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder when your breathing starts and stops while you’re asleep. The most common symptom of this is loud snoring and feeling tired even after sleeping a full night.

There are two kinds of sleep apnea and some people have both.

Obstructive sleep apnea happens when the throat closes while you’re asleep. This is the most common kind of apnea and one of the main risk factors is being overweight.

Central sleep apnea is when your brain doesn’t send the proper signal to the muscles that control breathing.

How to solve your insomnia for good

I help with insomnia directly. I use functional lab testing to find the imbalances in my clients’ bodies that are literally keeping them awake at night. The most common causes of insomnia that I see are:

• Hormone imbalance (low estrogen, low progesterone, high testosterone, high or low cortisol at night)
• An unhealthy gut (a pathogen in the gut that’s active at night, not enough good bacteria to make neurotransmitters, an inflamed gut wall that isn’t able to absorb nutrients)
• An unhealthy liver
• Food sensitivities
• Mineral imbalance
• Heavy metal toxicity
• Mold toxicity

I also sometimes end up helping my clients with sleep apnea indirectly.

Tips for getting help with your sleep apnea

We tend to think of sleep apnea as a physical problem from being overweight, but there’s more and more evidence that there are other contributors to this disorder.

According to the functional medicine perspective, sleep apnea is generally caused by inflammation. The key is to find out where the inflammation is coming from. The usual suspects are food sensitivities, sinus congestion and gut infections.

For example, H. pylori is a bacteria that raises the pH of the stomach, affecting protein digestion and nutrient absorption. A study concluded that H. pylori “infection may be associated with OSAS (Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome). In addition, increased severity of OSAS might be associated with higher seroprevalence of H. pylori.”

It’s estimated that 50% of the population has H. pylori and many doctors don’t treat it unless you have digestive symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating and burping. However, H. pylori can cause duodenal and stomach cancer and ulcers. Also, 90% of my clients have H. pylori so I see it highly correlated with sleep issues.

Chronic sinus congestion from mold toxicity or allergies can cause similar disturbed breathing to sleep apnea. According to an article by The Sleep Foundation, “emerging research shows the potential for allergic rhinitis to cause a host of sleep problems including insomnia, restless sleep, obstructive sleep apnea and snoring.”

There are also anecdotal stories such as this one about a man who had chronic congestion and was diagnosed with sleep apnea and slept horribly for 10 years. He finally did a food sensitivity test, eliminated the 22 foods he was sensitive to and within two weeks his nose cleared and he started sleeping!

Another source can be hormone imbalance. One study on obstructive sleep apnea and hormones found that low progesterone in women and low testosterone in men can also affect breathing at night and contribute to apneas.

Find out exactly what’s causing your sleep issues

As you can see, many of the contributors to insomnia and sleep apnea can be the same: inflammation, gut infections, food sensitivities, hormone imbalance, etc.

A sleep study is mainly meant to diagnose sleep apnea. Then the recommendation is to get a CPAP. I have many clients who have gone through sleep studies and everything comes back normal. There’s little help for general insomnia from these sleep specialists besides sleep hygiene recommendations and meds. I also have clients who are on CPAPs and who still wake up in the night and can’t go back to sleep. That means they have insomnia, too.

A CPAP may help with apnea but it doesn’t get to the root cause.

Functional lab testing can uncover what’s causing your sleep trouble so we know what to address. And that’s exactly what I do with my clients.

You don’t have to live with insomnia forever.

Get 7+ hours of uninterrupted sleep a night.