Niramay Hospital, Panvel

Hi,

I am Dr. Nilesh Chinchkar, Pulmonologist. Today I will talk on sleep apnea. Apnea means stoppage of breathing. Symptoms of sleep apnea are excessive snoring, excessive day time sleepiness, lack of concentration, fatigueness, morning headache, loss of memory. How does this develop? It is very common in obese people or who gain weight very rapidly. It may also present since birth congenitally. Tere is crowding of the throat structure. It happens to fall on the airway. Because of this, there is a blockage of the airway completely. Because of the air will not pass and the problem will arise in the lungs. Because of this, there is a lack of oxygen in the body. The brain sends a strong signal because of this obstruction. After sending signals from the brain, this structure got removed from the airway and the passage of the air gets clear and air enters into the lungs.

These things during sleep happen many times. Many times patient's brain needs to do work during the sleep. The patient thinks that he has slept for the whole night but actually his brain was working throughout the night. And because of this brain causes excessive sleepiness in the day time. Lack of sleep causes loss of memory gives you morning headache and it may also cause road accidents because the patient may sleep at the driving time. It is extremely important to get yourself diagnosed because it may also lead to hypothyroidism, It is also linked with diabetes and diabetes chances are 3 times more as compare to the normal individual and high chances of development of stroke and some infection may also be developed. We do the diagnosis with polysomnography test which is conducted during sleeping hours. It is also known as the sleeping test. We attach electrodes to the patient's body.

We attach the same with head, eyes, chin, abdominal belt and then to the lower limbs. It detects all kind of sleep cycles. It also detects lean moments, postures, eye movement. It gives us oxygen saturation level Based on this test, we categories sleep apnea in the mild-moderate and severe category. Based on that, we call the patient for similar tests. We put the airway passage solution throughout the sleep. This keeps the patient pop up, therefore, air easily passes and there is no fall of throat structure on the airway. Therefore there is not the development of apnea and patient do not get any symptoms. On another night, if there is an improvement in the apnea score and the oxygen level then we advise patients to use CPAP machine daily at night. After the use of the machine for a few days, the patient gets rid of all those symptoms and his quality of life improves. Therefore, friends, it is absolutely important to know the pathology of the symptoms because it is linked to many severe diseases and it is also important to treat and to improve the quality of life.

Thank You!

Hi,

I am Dr. Nilesh Chinchkar, Pulmonologist. Today I will talk on allergy and its impact on the respiratory system. Allergies are the main causes of respiratory diseases. Some of the diseases are allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, bronchial asthma, and a few others. There are many allergens present in our environment. Few are because of pollution, environmental allergens. There is a lot of construction going because of development. There are food allergens also which are present in seafood, dairy products and even in your day-to-day daily meal. There are pollens which causes allergies, grasses cause allergies. We live where there are many allergens and it cannot be detected which allergen is harmful to you. Every individual has a different body type. Few are very sensitive and a few are not at all. Now how to detect allergy.

There are a few blood tests available which detect the presence of allergens but do not detect the specific allergy. If you want to detect specifically then you have to go skin prick test or specific allergy testing. What we do in allergy or skin prick testing, we decide what exactly has to be tested. We put a few drops of allergens on your forearm and if somebody is allergic to the specific drop then they flare upswelling. After this, we ask the patient to go for immunotherapy. It is a way to treat allergic diseases. We customize for every individual. It is also available in injection forms and droplet form. It is advisable to take over a period of 1-2 years. The doses and treatment plan depends on the history and the type of allergens. Usually, we give it 2-3 times in a week and then on a monthly basis and then quarterly basis. After taking this treatment, the patient can get rid of allergies completely.

Yes, it is definitely possible to eliminate the allergy. It is not a life long thing which you need to carry from your birth to death. With the advancement of science, it is possible to defeat the allergens. Immunotherapy is really helpful for the patient in such cases. Allergic disease is like bronchial asthma, rhinitis, sinusitis. It can happen because of a dust mite. It can happen because of food also and environmental pollutant. And the symptoms arise during the change of season. During winter or spring season you get symptoms and the method of detecting is skin prick testing and with immunotherapy. So, friends, I wanted to tell you the basics of allergies, the diseases it causes and it is possible to treat the allergies with the help of immunotherapy. I hope you have understood the topic.

Thank You!