Am I a frequent and very loud snorer? Do others tell me that I often stop making noise with breathing pauses and then start again with groans, snorts and moans?
Does my bed partner, who often goes to sleep in another room, tell me that I frequently have a restless night of sleep?
Do I feel noticeably tired in the morning upon waking up and do I get sometimes a bit of a headache?
In this case, it’s recommended to carry out a sleep monitoring to monitor the sleep and check if OSAS (Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome) is present.

What is OSAS?

While sleeping, there are brief moments when the flow of the air in the upper airways (i.e. nose and mouth) stops while thoracic and abdominal movements persist.
Instinctively, to overcome the obstruction and resume normal breathing, the body reacts progressively intensifying these movements up to cause loud snoring.
Apneas can be repeated more than five times for each hour of sleep. Each apnea lasts a few seconds and when it stops, it provokes a brief awakening of a reduction in sleep.
Your sleep is thus fragmented and not really restful and in the morning you have the feeling of not having slept well even if the sleeping hours are the usual ones and during the day you can be affected by costant drowsiness. (1)
At this point, you’ll wonder: what are the causes of this pathology? Actually, there are no real “causes”, but factors that can contribute to the narrowing of the upper airways, provoking sleep apnea.
Among the factors that can lead to the narrowing of the upper airways we find:
• Relevant weight gain;
• The consumption of alcohol;
• The habit of smoking;
• The use of drugs and/or relaxants that induce sleep

OSAS is often underestimated and it is a big mistake. Indeed, if OSAS is neglected, in the long run it becomes a threat to the cardiovascular system, since it increases the risk of hypertension, stroke and heart attack. (2) The difficulty in breathing regularly, straining the respiratory tract with each inhalation, causes a poor introduction of oxygen into the lungs and then a lack of blood oxygenation.
This leads to considerable fatigue for the organism, which reacts by increasing the blood pressure.
And then over the time hypertension impairs the correct function of the heart, brain and vessels.

Find the nearest pharmacy for sleep monitoring

Find out more about our Sleep Monitor and how the exam is carried out