Mike Wiegenstein: You are watching Medical News Network, your trusted source for the latest in medical news and information. I am Mike Wiegenstein and thanks for joining us. On today’s show we take a very special look at two diseases that didn’t tell the death of Green Bay Packer and Reggie White had gone about their business and relative obscurity. So, if you snore toss and turn at night or fatigue, have headaches may be even migraines or something wrong there are no doctors being able to explain to you and get ready to hear some life changing information. Stick around, we will be right back.
Female Speaker: Welcome to an educational and comprehensive discussion with today’s top medical experts, your trusted source for the latest in medical news and information. You are watching Medical News Network.
Mike Wiegenstein: Welcome back, we are in studio with Dr. Leonard Feld. Dr. Feld, a nationally recognized authority on TMJ and sleep apnea and the founder and director of one of the nation’s top treatment facilities. Dr. Feld, welcome to the show.
Dr. Leonard Feld: Thank you.
Mike Wiegenstein: I brought you on today to talk a little about TMJ, which is the jaw joint disorder that they are finding out causes all kinds of pains from migraines headaches to numb arms and hands and about sleep apnea which like I said with the death of the Green Bay, and Reggie White has really been pushed into the spot light. I don’t know that everybody really knows what sleep apnea is or how who has it, who doesn’t, I talked to you about at most every things will I just snore little bit at night, I roll over, or I wake up, I am tired setting a good night sleep so I tossed and turned. So, tell me a little about what goes on and what is sleep apnea and what goes in your body, what is happening I mean by the way.
Dr. Leonard Feld: Oh, that’s a really good question and I am glad you asked that actually because the word scares people and they don’t know what it is. Apnea is the Greek word basically is not breathing and sleep apnea is referred to that same idea and its termed now that if you stop breathing, stop breathing for 10 seconds or more, you have apnea.
Mike Wiegenstein: Do you stop breathing when you are asleep?
Dr. Leonard Feld: Right.
Mike Wiegenstein: So, I lay down I go to sleep, while I am sleeping I quit breathing, why would I quit breathing.
Dr. Leonard Feld: That is if you have obstructive sleep apnea, there is a obstructions in either your nose, your mouth or your throat and that clogs your breathing passage and as you try and breathe harder, I got a good example for you, my daughter gave this to me. Lets say you have a straw and a straw has a kind of bent in the middle and you are trying to breathe real hard and more you trying to breathe, the less air goes through it because it collapses so the collapsing of the throat or the impingement of extra tissue in the throat creates a problem for you to get air.
Mike Wiegenstein: How do most people find out you told me that there are 20 million or 30 I don’t remember the number -- how do people find out, what are some of the signs of apnea that I wouldn’t snoring, the snoring one.
Dr. Leonard Feld: Yeah, I mean there are signs and symptoms that I can give you them that its estimated that one-third of the population had some sort of a sleep problem. About 40 million people had a chronic problem, mysterious problem and 20 million had a problem that’s affecting their life drastically, and in other words their whole life is kind of going downhill.
Some of the signs, first sign you don’t have to have obstructive sleep apnea if you snore but it’s a sign that can tell you that or the symptom of sleep apnea or congestion in your throat or nose. Snoring is a sign for adults they could have depression, they could have anxiety, tiredness they wake up tired in the morning no matter what time they go to bed, they go to bed at 6 o’clock, 8 o’clock, 10 o’clock it doesn’t matter when they go to sleep, you they wake up tired.
Mike Wiegenstein: I can understand tired, I can understand you know maybe to get the sleep very good but you talked about hypertension, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression how do you get those from not breathing a few times at night when you sleep.
Dr. Leonard Feld: When we are talking about not breathing a lot, people don’t realize that because they don’t wake up, they wake up but they don’t wake up, they don’t remember waking up because
Mike Wiegenstein: Its like somebody comes and you are sleeping, they ask you a question, you answer when they talked to you, you don’t remember answer the question.
Dr. Leonard Feld: Exactly, exactly. They wake up but they don’t know they wake up and there is basically stage one, two, three and four of sleep that’s what they call it in the medical terms and then is what’s called REM sleep, that’s rapid eye movement.
Mike Wiegenstein: That’s what my daughter love to come, lift my eyelids and see if I am in there.
Dr. Leonard Feld: Okay, that’s great. When you are rem there is only three muscles in the body that actually move. Everything else is paralyzed. When you are in rem, you are paralyzed. Okay, so it’s the eyes, the heart and the diaphragm. Obviously you have to stay breathing, so the diaphragm works, the heart has to work, in other ways it wouldn’t be and for some reason the eyes move okay and the faster they move that you are in rem sleep. And that we found out now that if a child’s -- is not growing properly or his face is malformed.
Mike Wiegenstein: Did you tell me about this when I, okay.
Dr. Leonard Feld: Okay, that’s when it
Mike Wiegenstein: -- too small or --
Dr. Leonard Feld: Well if their jaws are right and they have too many teeth for their little head or their maxilla that the top of their jaw doesn’t grow and that lower jaw doesn’t grow or this kind of a stunted growth that is associated with sleep because that’s when the growth hormone is released when they are in rem sleep.
Okay, that’s also the time that your body heals, its also the time when your body when you are older when your body stores things like a computer, the information you had from the day before that’s one is put in so people will have breathing problems, sleeping problems, start forgetting things. They think they and they are afraid to admit and afraid to recognize because they think they might have Alzheimer’s disease, basically that computers are not storing the information.
Mike Wiegenstein: Because they are never getting to that level
Dr. Leonard Feld: Getting that superb.
Mike Wiegenstein: Do you also told me that young children sometimes wet the bed if they are having their breathing obstructed at night.
Dr. Leonard Feld: That’s one of the symptoms of because they are so tired they don’t wake up. Okay and that particular period and its called enuresis and they wet their bed. So, that’s a sign of obstructive sleep apnea like grinding their teeth at night. That happens because when you are growing your teeth, you might have making their face little bit
Mike Wiegenstein: No, I understand that.
Dr. Leonard Feld: So, when you grind your teeth, all the muscles will then shrink and tight, then you can breathe because
Mike Wiegenstein: See, I would have thought was exact opposite.
Dr. Leonard Feld: Right.
Mike Wiegenstein: Yeah.
Dr. Leonard Feld: So, I mean a child that has a sleep problem and doesn’t sleep at night now gets in class the least hyperactive. Well, that doesn’t make sense because an adult that has a dose of sleep he falls asleep at the --
Mike Wiegenstein: Right.
Dr. Leonard Feld: So, it’s a different mechanism that works for children that it does with adults.
Mike Wiegenstein: Okay, real quick as we have to take a quick break. Reggie White is why i count, I love the Packers, I will admit it but he was actually under some form of care when he died from this. So, is it something that is easily recognized, is it something that is
Dr. Leonard Feld: Well, it’s easily tested for, yes.
Mike Wiegenstein: Is it and a I know a lot of people probably afraid of it because we are going to talk a little about, we are taking a quick break. We come back and talk about the treatment and the treatments have changed and I want to make sure that we present it right but normally everybody is been afraid of the treatment for that or what you have to do to survive with it. So, when we are back we are going to look at some new ways for taking care of the problem. You are watching Medical News Network, I am Mike Wiegenstein, we will be right back.
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Mike Wiegenstein: Welcome back, we are in studio with Dr. Leonard Feld talking about sleep apnea the silent killer. Hi doc, before we went to the break we talked about some of the signs and symptoms you know. I found that interesting is you say that little kids don’t sleep at night, they get hyperactive, they wet the bed, they have other things, adults don’t -- very tired during the day -- told you that I checked the little dental research and found out there are more accidents on the --
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