Hi Abilene I am a big advocate of the treatment of Sleep Apnea, I was diagnosed with it back in january of 2007. I would suggest that you check out the various web sites dealing with Sleep Apnea. One of the better ones, and I think similar to this site, in the fact that people are helpful and the site is fairly well regulated, and no spam or flaming is permitted. Here is the link.
http://www.apneasupport.org/CPAP treatment is by far the easiest and I think best way to treat sleep apnea, but for allot of reasons it has a very very high failure rate, ( allot of people just don't like or can not get use to using CPAP) it take allot of will power to adjust to it, but it does work and is extremely effective! I use my mask and machine every night all night long! It is a real Godsend!
Sleep Apnea is mainly Obstructive which is when your throat collapses in on its self when sleeping, and is usually treated with the use of CPAP! But there is another form of sleep apnea, which is sometimes caused by the use of certain pain meds, it is called Central apneas, it can be causes by a host of other different things too, such as....... CHF, upper brain stem injury, and certain neurological diseases just to name a few. Central apneas is when your brain quits telling you to breath. This is also treated by a similiar process very similar to the CPAP, the machine looks and acts very much the same as the CPAP machine but it is actually a type of ventilator. It is a ASV machine ( Adaptive Servo Ventilator) I have been using this type of machine since May of 2008, as I have a combination of Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Central Sleep Apnea, this type is know as Complex Sleep Apnea.
A normal CPAP increases the air presurre in your throat, thus keeping it from collapsing and shuting off your air supply while sleeping. The ASV machine also does this but it also senses when you stop breathing, and it will adjust the pressure to get you to start breathing again, just like a ventilator. Sleep apnea is when you stop breathing and your not getting oxygen to your lungs, whether it be because of your throat collapsing and blocking your air way or by your brain not telling you to breath. Your body while sleeping senses this, and goes into a flight or fight type of condition, and thus wakes you up, ( even if you don't remember waking up) You wake up enough to start breathing again, then you start to go back to sleep, and then it all starts over and over again! For some this may happen 30 to 60 times an hour, or more, and thus your body never really gets any sleep, and you never really get into deep healing REM sleep. Thus your always tired during the day. and allot of people suffer from what they call a sleep apnea fog! Which is sleep deprivation! A very dangerous condition!
Anyway I do wish you well and just remember the secret of success with controling Sleep Apnea, is lots of determination, and attitude, and using your PAP machine every night all night long!
If you have any Sleep Apnea questions I will be more than happy to try and help you. Good Luck to you!
White Beard