NATIONAL stop SNORING Week 19 - 24 APRIL. ZZzzzzzzzzz

Rx for a good night's rest


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By Paul Ferguson

Daily Register

PORTAGE - It's not uncommon for awareness and change to emerge from tragedy. And that may be the case following the untimely passing of former Packer Reggie White.

Lynn Waldera of Divine Savior Healthcare likened White's death, which is being blamed on complications of sleep apnea, to Bill Clinton's rather sudden bypass surgery in September. "It wasn't too long after that there were men thinking, 'Maybe I should be checked,'" Waldera said.

"I would not be surprised at all locally ... for that awareness to increase."



As director of Divine Savior's sleep disorder lab, Waldera would deal directly with a greater awareness of sleeping disorders such as sleep apnea. Divine Savior's lab, which served its first patient Dec. 16, was a necessity locally just as sleep disorder labs and research are becoming a necessity around the country.

Until recently, Sauk City and Baraboo were the only places in the area, other than Madison, that had sleep labs, Waldera said. But more broadly speaking, before sleep research took off in the late 1970s, disorders such as sleep apnea went largely unrecognized and physicians frequently dismissed symptoms, Waldera said.

"[Patients] typically have symptoms of loud snoring that disrupts their partner's sleep. They're told they stop breathing at night. They wake up gasping for air," Waldera said. The process repeats itself multiple times each night, she added.

The cause of the irregular breathing is excess body mass. Regardless of whether it's fatty tissue or muscle, excess tissue around the neck chokes off air when sufferers are sleeping and relaxed, Waldera explained.

A lack of continuous sleep leaves sufferers irritable and sleepy during the day, Waldera said. Long-term effects include diabetes, high blood pressure and an increased chance for heart attack and stroke. The link to those diseases is a choked-off oxygen supply forcing the heart to constantly work harder to pump enough oxygen to the body.

Typical sufferers are middle-aged, overweight men, Waldera said. It's not limited to such groups; sleep apnea can occur in people with naturally small airways, Waldera said.

But for the most part, Waldera would link the rise in sleep apnea's prevalence with obesity's greater occurrence in the population. "Probably less than 10 percent of our patients that come into our sleep lab are at what would be a textbook weight. Most of our patients are overweight," Waldera said.

As such, Waldera said a primary preventive measure would be the basic silver bullet of preventive measures: weight loss through improved diet and exercise. Sleep-apnea sufferers who lose 10 percent of their body weight can reduce the pressure needed from a mechanical device used to treat sleep apnea, Waldera said.

That device, known as a CPAP device (continuous positive airway pressure), compresses atmospheric air through a mask over a sufferer's face. The Divine Savior lab treats with CPAP during a one-night stay before releasing a patient and arranging for a home CPAP device.

The new lab has just one bedroom for overnight observation, in which staff can monitor 21 channels of information on a patient, including breathing, oxygen levels, heart rate and leg movements.

Although only two patients have been seen in the lab, Waldera said the lab has availability for more patients as soon as next month.

Anyone interested in services at the sleep disorder lab should contact Divine Savior Healthcare at 742-4131 or cardiopulmonary services at 745-5091.