High blood pressure
Sleep apnoea causes surges in your blood pressure. Over time, untreated sleep apnoea can lead to permanently high blood pressure during sleep. Eventually your body becomes so accustomed to having high blood pressure that it remains high during the daytime as well.
Arrhythmias
Sleep apnoea causes surges in your heart rate during sleep. Over time this can destabilise your heart rate so that it speeds up, slows down or becomes irregular. These changes in heart rate are known as arrhythmias and can vary in severity.
Cardiovascular disease
Sleep apnoea causes a decline in your oxygen levels, a release of stress hormones and can result in high blood pressure during sleep. These factors can encourage the build-up of fatty deposits in your arteries.
Fatty deposits narrow your arteries and can eventually lead to a blockage in one of them. This process is known as cardiovascular disease and can result in angina, heart attack or stroke:
- Angina – Chest pain that usually signals that the arteries supplying your heart are starting to become narrow.
- Heart attack – If there is a complete blockage in one of the arteries supplying an area of the heart, oxygen-rich blood may no longer reach this area. It may become damaged, which can affect the ability of the heart to beat properly. This is known as a heart attack and requires emergency treatment.
- Stroke – If there is a complete blockage in one of the arteries that supply a region of the brain, oxygen-rich blood may no longer get through. That part of the brain may become damaged, leading to a stroke. A stroke needs to be treated as a medical emergency to prevent long-term brain damage.
Check out this video of a sleep apnoea sufferer called Sherry chatting to Dr Malhotra of Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Sherry explains her main symptom – exhaustion – while Dr Malhotra covers some of the complications of untreated sleep apnoea.
