Published July 15, 2025
Imagine this scenario: You finally crawl into bed, ready to recharge after a long day. You drift off to sleep, only to be poked awake every two minutes. You nod off again—poke!—there it is again. Now imagine instead of poking you, someone gently places a pillow over your face every couple minutes. You begin to suffocate, oxygen drops, heart races—until you jerk awake, gasping. Then it starts again.
Welcome to the nightly reality of millions of people with obstructive sleep apnea.
What Is Obstructive Sleep Apnea?
Obstructive sleep apnea is a sleep disorder where your airway collapses repeatedly during sleep, cutting off airflow and causing you to wake up, often without remembering it. The most common mechanism involves the tongue and soft tissues of the throat relaxing and falling back, blocking the airway. This is often caused by reduced tone in the throat muscles, especially the hypoglossal nerve, which controls the tongue.
This condition is not rare—it’s an epidemic. One large study published in The Lancet estimated that more than 1 billion people globally may suffer from some degree of sleep apnea. Many of them have no idea.
But What Does It Actually Do to Me?
This is where it gets scary and life-changing. When your airway closes every few minutes during the night, it’s like you’re getting micro-suffocated 15, 20, 30, even 60 or more times per hour. Every time this happens, your oxygen levels drop, your body kicks into fight-or-flight mode, your sleep gets interrupted, your heart gets stressed, and your brain gets deprived of oxygen.
Even if you think you “slept,” you didn’t enter the deep restorative phases. The effects show up as waking up exhausted, brain fog, irritability, poor memory, weight gain, high blood pressure, and increased risk of heart attacks, strokes, and dementia.
Dr. Matthew Walker, author of Why We Sleep, puts it this way: “Sleep is the single most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day.” When we disrupt that, day after day, it’s like trying to drive cross-country with no oil in the engine.
Why Does This Happen?
Several factors contribute to sleep apnea. Age plays a role as muscle tone in the throat drops as we get older. Weight gain creates fat deposits in the neck that crowd the airway. Alcohol relaxes the throat and blunts the nerves. Anatomy matters too—having a small jaw, large tongue, or narrow throat can increase risk. Nerve dysfunction, especially of the hypoglossal nerve which should hold the tongue forward during sleep, sometimes fails to get the proper signal.
It’s important to note that even thin people can have sleep apnea, so it’s not just about body weight.
How Do I Know If I Have It?
Several red flags can indicate sleep apnea. Loud snoring is often the first sign, along with gasping or choking in sleep that your partner may notice. Waking up unrested despite 7-8 hours in bed is another key indicator. Morning headaches, feeling tired or irritable during the day, and needing a nap to survive the afternoon are all common symptoms.
The real problem is that most people don’t know they’re waking up. They just assume they’re bad sleepers or that this is normal with age. It’s not normal.
Introducing a New Tool: The SleepImage Ring
To help identify sleep apnea affordably and easily, we’ve partnered with SleepImage to offer a new home-based diagnostic tool—a simple thumb ring you wear for one night. This FDA-cleared device measures oxygen drops, pulse changes, sleep fragmentation, and breathing patterns.
You simply wear it to bed. That’s it. In the morning, we generate a full report showing your Apnea Hypopnea Index and overall sleep quality. The cost is just $50 compared to traditional in-lab sleep studies that can cost $1,000 or more, or even home-based options that run $185 or more. We’re thrilled to bring this affordable solution to Forest DPC patients. We keep the devices right here in our office, so we can get you tested quickly. If you do have sleep apnea and need insurance to cover treatment options there will be an extra charge of $60 to send your report to a pulmonologist in order for them to give the official stamp so the insurance company can approve the coverage. This still ends up saving you money on sleep studies which is highly important to us!
So if you’re tired of being tired, or you just want to check if your sleep is doing what it should, give us a call. We’ll get you set up with a ring, walk you through the report, and help you understand next steps.
What Happens If It Is Sleep Apnea?
Good news: We can treat it. Depending on the severity, several options are available.
APAP (Automatic Positive Airway Pressure) is the modern evolution of CPAP. It automatically adjusts the pressure needed to keep your airway open through the night. Much quieter, more comfortable, and smarter than the old machines. If you’ve tried CPAP years ago and hated it, this is different.
Inspire Device is an implantable device that stimulates the hypoglossal nerve when you breathe in, activating your tongue muscles and keeping the airway open. No mask, no hose. You turn it on at night with a remote. It’s FDA-approved and life-changing for some patients.
Mandibular Advancement Device is one of my personal favorites, especially for mild to moderate apnea. This custom dental device gently moves the lower jaw forward during sleep, opening the airway so even if your tongue relaxes, there’s room to breathe. One of the best devices on the market is made by ProSomnus, and we’ve seen excellent results with this type of therapy.
How effective is it? Someone with an AHI of 30 (waking up 30 times per hour) can drop to under 5, which is now in the normal range. That’s trading nightly suffocation for deep, uninterrupted sleep. No tubes, no noise, just a small dental appliance. It can be a total game changer!
Sleep Is Medicine
Don’t underestimate what one good night of sleep can do. Sleep repairs tissue and strengthens immunity, stabilizes blood pressure, improves mental clarity, enhances memory consolidation, regulates mood and metabolism, and lowers the risk of depression, dementia, and cardiovascular disease. You cannot out-supplement or out-caffeinate bad sleep. You might have picked up that I am passionate about my patients getting good sleep and I am happy to work with you anytime to help improve this necessary medicine.
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