What causes breathing problems?

I believe that many people have never heard of respiratory disorders in their lives. This is a sensory systemic disease, which generally has genetic factors. Most people will have intergenerational inheritance or congenital inheritance. It is not ruled out that respiratory disorders are caused by facial structure problems such as appearance. The main causes of this disease include the patient's facial structure, collapse of certain parts of the body, excessive obesity, and poor development, which will lead to intermittent, low pressure, and wheezing sounds during the breathing process. People with respiratory disorders will have heavy wheezing when they are tired, too focused, and have a high concentration rate. The sound is very rough and they cannot hear it themselves, but people around them can feel it. There will also be intermittent breathing and no normal breathing for a long time. This situation is also very influential.

Causes

In most patients, factors that lead to repeated respiratory arrest and/or hypopnea during sleep can be found, including abnormal respiratory control during sleep, sleeping posture and body position, cycle time and cardiac output, changes in upper airway morphology and genetic factors.

(1) The three basic characteristics of obstructive SDB have been elucidated, namely: ① Upper airway obstruction, usually in the pharynx. For example, in obese patients, there is increased fat around the upper airway, which increases the external airway pressure and leads to stenosis of the airway lumen. In patients with acromegaly and hypothyroidism, the airway lumen may be narrowed and prone to collapse due to hyperplasia of the upper airway tissue or myxedema. Abnormal anatomical structures of the pharynx, tongue, and mandible, such as retruded or small mandible, thick or short neck, etc., can also lead to stenosis of the airway lumen. ②The size of the pharyngeal cavity is affected by the tension of the upper airway muscles. The airway muscle tension is higher when awake, and decreases accordingly during sleep. The muscle tension is lowest during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and the number of apnea episodes during this period is often the highest. OSAS patients have upper airway muscle fiber rupture and nerve demyelination, which leads to decreased muscle tone and is also an important reason for the airway lumen to collapse easily. ③The size of the pharyngeal cavity depends on the balance between the closing pressure and the opening pressure of the pharyngeal cavity. During inhalation, the intrathoracic pressure decreases and the tube wall tends to collapse; during exhalation, the intrathoracic pressure increases and the tube wall tends to open, so airflow limitation and respiratory pause only occur during the inhalation phase.

(2) Genetic factors: sDB tends to cluster in families. Due to the inheritance of appearance, many people in the family have maxillofacial features that make them susceptible to SDB. Studies have found that sensitivity to hypercapnia and hypoxia is also familial, and periodic breathing is prone to occur during sleep. Obesity also has a genetic predisposition.

symptom

The main pathophysiological changes of SDB are hypoxemia and/or hypercapnia caused by repeated apnea or hypopnea during sleep, as well as changes in sleep structure, which cause a series of clinical manifestations and damage to multiple organ functions. Includes symptoms during sleep, daytime symptoms, and organ function damage and complications.

1. Symptoms during sleep Snoring is the main symptom of OSAS, which is caused by the vibration of the soft tissue of the pharynx when the air flows through the narrow pharynx. Even if the elderly patients are in a serious condition, their snoring may be small; waking up at night and suffocating, some severe cases may die from suffocation; other symptoms include insomnia, enuresis, screaming, night wandering, etc.

2. Daytime symptoms Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is often the most prominent symptom of OSAS, which is caused by repeated sleep interruptions at night and decreased sleep quality. In mild cases, the only symptoms are inattention and intermittent drowsiness. Severe patients may fall asleep while talking to people, or even while driving or riding a bicycle. Morning headache is more common in women. Neuropsychiatric symptoms may occur, such as memory loss, personality changes, anxiety, depression, etc., which are particularly obvious in elderly patients.

3. Manifestations of organ dysfunction and complications Patients may experience symptoms such as sexual dysfunction and fatigue. Persistent illness may cause or aggravate diseases of multiple systems, such as hypertension, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, cor pulmonale, respiratory failure, diabetes, etc. Sometimes these diseases may be the main symptoms for medical treatment, and the presence of SDB is not noticed.