Recently, a new method of treating hypertension has been discovered. His discovery is associated with a number of studies that show the relationship of this disease with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS, sleep apnea disease). Hypertension occurs in almost 50% of sleep apnea patients. There is another relationship, more than 30% of patients with hypertension suffer from respiratory arrest during sleep and snoring . In Western classifications, it is sleep apnea that currently ranks first among all secondary arterial hypertension. The likelihood of developing hypertensionincreases if the patient is overweight, has an advanced age, snores in his sleep.
For the first time the relationship of these diseases was noted about 10 years ago. Now doctors around the world have already found a way to deal with obstructive sleep apnea and hypertension. Despite this, only a few doctors in our country use the data of these studies in their practice.
Hypertension, which appeared as a result of OSAS, develops as follows. At the end stage of each episode of respiratory arrest during sleep, the human body spontaneously releases norepinephrine and adrenaline. This leads to an increase in heart rate and a jump in blood pressure. During the night, there can be any number of pauses in breathing in a dream: from isolated cases to tens and even hundreds of times.
During sleep, a person experiences multiple pressure surges, which leads to the appearance of not only nocturnal hypertension, but also hypertension in the morning and even during the day. If the pressure of a patient with OSAS is monitored during the day, then it does not decrease at night, and on the contrary, there is a higher value of blood pressure at night compared to daytime indicators.
Hypertensionduring sleep is also observed in those patients in whom daytime hypertension is not diagnosed. That is, in fact, the patient may not be aware of his problem and feel only malaise in the morning for a reason that is not clear to him. During the day, his pressure gradually stabilizes and returns to normal, but with the onset of sleep and the appearance of episodes of apnea, it rises again abruptly.
CPAP therapy is used to treat and eliminate the symptoms of sleep apnea. According to studies, this technique also avoids night pressure surges, that is, eliminates the signs of hypertension. To prevent pauses in breathing during sleep and to reduce pressure during sleep, the patient must use a special CPAP device that continuously pumps air into his airways at low pressure. The walls of the airways do not stick together, thereby eliminating the very possibility of stopping breathing during sleep, which means that symptoms such as snoring, lack of oxygen, as well as hypertension and even the risk of a possible death during sleep disappear.
Devices currently used for the treatment of nocturnal hypertensionand apnea, comfortable and functional. So, for example, the device Prisma 20A made in Germany is comfortable not only for the patient himself, but also for his relatives. It is compact, almost silent, allows you to control the course of treatment, easy to operate. In addition to problems with hypertension and snoring, CPAP devices reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular and other chronic diseases, improve the general well-being of the patient, normalize metabolism, and promote weight loss by eliminating pauses in breathing during sleep.