Sleep Apnea

Who Treats Sleep Apnea ?

Posted on 06. Dec, 2009 by admin in Treating Sleep Apnea

Where your treatment will be carried out will depend both on your sleep center and on the treatment you will have. Some sleep centers provide both testing and treatment of sleep apnea, some do only sleep testing, and some fall in between these two extremes, doing some types of treatment in-house but referring patients elsewhere for others.

In any case, you can expect the sleep specialist and his staff to work with you and your family to plan your treatment and to recommend a treatment specialist. Your family doctor may be brought into the process at this stage.

Your sleep doctor may begin by suggesting a number of treatments that you can carry out on your own (stop smoking, lose weight, and so on). To help you with these, the sleep center may refer you to a nutritional counselor, a smokers’ support group, or other such organized programs.

If surgery is an option for you and your sleep center does not perform surgery, the center will probably suggest or recommend surgeons and other specialists with whom its staff members work frequently, and these physicians will be brought into the picture to help plan your treatment.

If your sleep center has surgeons and other specialists on the staff who can treat you there, you may still want to talk with an outside physician, preferably one with some familiarity with sleep disorders, for a second opinion before you agree to surgery.

If your treatment involves medications, the sleep center may prefer to start you on the medication and then have your family physician take over the follow-up care and monitor your progress.

The most common treatment involves the use of a breathing device. The device may be supplied through the sleep center, or the center may arrange for a homecare or medical equipment company to supply the equipment.

How you receive your treatment will depend on the particular sleep center, the size of its staff, and the emphasis of its program.

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