Sleep Disorders: Not Just a Man's Problem
April 17, 2006 — -- If you think of an overweight man when you think of sleep disorders, then meet Martha Yasso.
She was recently diagnosed with hypopnea, a condition where breathing becomes shallower or slower than normal during sleep.
Yasso had great difficulty sleeping because of her condition, waking up approximately 240 times a night, tests found. Her sleep and breathing have improved dramatically, however, over the last four nights because she has been using a machine called CPAP -- continuous positive airway pressure -- and wears a mask that blows "room air" into her nose to open up her nasal passages.
"I think there's a growing recognition in the medical community and among patients themselves women do have sleep problems," said Barbara Kantrowitz, a senior editor at Newsweek who has written about sleep. "It's not just a man's problem. It's a women's, too."
Yasso didn't realize she was waking up -- she just knew she felt very tired all the time.
"I thought I was sleeping through the night," Yasso said. "Back in October, my son knocked me on the face when I fell asleep in the afternoon and said, 'Mom, wake up!'"
That served as a real wake-up call to Yasso, who contacted her doctor. Her doctor recommended she visit a sleep clinic. In addition to hypopnea, doctors found she also suffered from periodic limb-movement disorder, where her legs twitch involuntarily, further disturbing her sleep.
Kantrowitz said Yasso had handled her sleep problem the right way. Too often, she said, women's sleep problems get blamed on stress when there could be a medical problem.
"I think the important thing is when they go to the doctor, which they should do, they should insist on getting a diagnosis, not just walk away with a pill without knowing what the problem is," Kantrowitz said.
If there isn't a medical problem, she added, women can examine what doctors call "sleep hygiene," the environment that surrounds the bedroom and sleeping.
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