Treating Sleep Disorders at Our DFW Clinics
Posted: February 17, 2022
Sleep disorders affect millions of people in the U.S. For instance, one common sleep disorder is sleep apnea, which causes you to stop breathing during the night. Left untreated, many sleep disorders can cause serious health effects, such as an increased risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and depression. Sleep issues can take years off your life and can also affect your overall quality of life. If you think you may have a sleep disorder, visit our Dallas sleep apnea clinic for diagnosis and treatment.
Searching for a Dallas Sleep Apnea Clinic for Suspected Sleep Disorders
Fatigue and other symptoms from sleep disorders can affect your everyday life and overall health.
If you’re looking for a sleep center in Dallas Fort Worth, you likely think you have a sleep disorder for one reason or another. We treat many patients for sleep disorders after their partner mentions they snore or even stop breathing during the night. Other patients come in because they frequently feel tired throughout the day, to the point they find they can’t take part in things they enjoy because of their fatigue. However, in other cases you might be looking for a sleep center because another doctor, such as your primary care physician or your cardiologist, recommends getting tested for common sleep disorders like sleep apnea. At our sleep centers, we can conduct sleep tests to help you address your symptoms.
Symptoms of Sleep Disorders
Many sleep disorders go undiagnosed, creating serious health issues for many people across the nation. Understanding what is normal and what might point to a sleep disorder is essential. Here are some common symptoms that you should talk to our providers about:
- Snoring
- Morning headaches
- Waking up gasping
- Difficulty going to sleep or staying asleep
- Daytime sleepiness
- Excessive movement during sleep
If you notice these symptoms, it might be time to visit your local sleep center in Dallas Fort Worth for diagnosis and treatment. There are many different types of facilities you can visit to address your sleep problems, each offering a different level of service for your needs.
Types of Facilities in Dallas to Address Sleep Disorders
When you’re experiencing symptoms of a sleep disorder, you might not know where to turn. Many people start their journey toward better sleep with their primary care physician to discuss their symptoms. However, in many cases their doctor may not have the experience needed to effectively diagnose and treat common sleep disorders like sleep apnea.
For instance, if you complain about difficulty sleeping, some doctors may prescribe sleeping pills to help. However, these pills can actually make some sleep disorders, like obstructive sleep apnea, worse. Sleeping pills can actually make your airways relax even more, which can cause you to stop breathing even more throughout the night. Therefore, you may want to seek diagnosis for your sleep issues from a facility that focuses on sleep medicine. Two common options are a sleep lab and a sleep center.
Sleep Labs
Sleep labs are facilities that specifically perform testing for sleep disorders. If you need a polysomnography to diagnose your sleep issues, a sleep lab is an option for testing. Getting a sleep study at a lab may vary based on the facility and your sleep concerns. However, typically you must arrive at the lab at a certain time of night and sleep at the lab. The sleep technicians will need to attach various pieces of equipment to assess things like heart rate, oxygen levels, and eye movements.
There are several drawbacks of working with a sleep lab for sleep disorder diagnosis. First, the lab is only responsible for performing the tests while you sleep. They don’t typically offer diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, in most cases you will need to arrange for the lab to send your results to a doctor for diagnosis and treatment.
The cost is another disadvantage of choosing a sleep lab. In-lab sleep studies can be expensive, often reaching into multiple thousand dollars for the test. In many cases, the study cost also doesn’t include the physician fees for reading the test results. Therefore, sleep labs can be a pricey option for many patients.
In addition, sleep labs are often incredibly inconvenient for many people. It can often take months to get an appointment. Also, in many cases these labs have set hours for sleep studies, often between 10 PM and 6AM, which may not suit your schedule.
Another drawback of choosing a sleep lab is that many people find them uncomfortable. Sleeping in an unfamiliar place can negatively affect your sleep, which could affect your results. Many people feel anxious trying to sleep in a lab setting. Therefore, a study in a sleep lab may not be fully representative of a normal night’s sleep for you.
Dallas Sleep Centers
A sleep center, also known as a sleep clinic, is a facility that offers a more comprehensive approach to diagnosing and treating sleep disorders. Unlike the sleep lab setting, our sleep centers help with home testing, diagnosis, treatment, and ongoing treatment monitoring. This means everything is under one roof to help you sleep better. Many people find the sleep clinic setting more convenient.
Our Dallas sleep apnea clinics offer home sleep testing. This is a test you can take at home in your own bed that provides our sleep specialist information that may help with diagnosing your sleep disorder. These tests are typically best for people with suspected sleep apnea. Home sleep tests are often much more accessible than a full polysomnography. For instance, you can take a sleep test device home with you from our clinic, or we can even send a disposable test right to your door. A home sleep test can help with a sleep apnea diagnosis or help rule out some sleep disorders that could be causing your symptoms.
The home sleep test device uses small sensors to gather data about your breathing while you sleep. After your home sleep test, our sleep technicians compile the data from the device and send it to our sleep doctor for review. Our sleep doctor evaluates the data to determine how many apnea events you experienced during your test. Apnea events are where you stop breathing or breathe shallowly while you sleep. If you have more than five apnea events, then you may have sleep apnea. Our doctor uses the data from your home sleep test to either rule out or diagnose you with sleep apnea.
After diagnosis, our sleep centers can also help with treatment. We create a personalized treatment plan suited to your needs and lifestyle. If a CPAP device is part of your sleep apnea treatment in Dallas, we can even provide the device and help you find the right options. As you take part in your treatment plan, our team also offers ongoing monitoring to help optimize treatment and help you feel your best.
Benefits of Seeing a Sleep Specialist for Sleep Disorders
A great reason to visit our Dallas sleep apnea clinic for symptoms of a sleep disorder is we have a dedicated sleep specialist to help with diagnosis and treatment. Our board-certified, Harvard-educated Dallas sleep apnea doctor, Dr. Vidya Pai, M.D., is head of sleep medicine at our centers and offers experience in diagnosing and treating sleep disorders.
Sleep specialists like Dr. Pai offer additional education and experience focused on sleep. Sleep specialists focus on finding underlying causes to common sleep problems like snoring or daytime sleepiness and also treating sleep disorders that can affect your health and quality of life.
Visit a Low T Center in Dallas Fort Worth for Sleep Disorders
If you have symptoms of a sleep disorder, it’s important to address your symptoms as soon as possible for your health and your everyday life. Our sleep centers can help with diagnosis and treatment for sleep apnea, one of the most common sleep disorders. We offer convenient, affordable care in 10 locations across the Dallas Fort Worth area. Our team is dedicated to finding customized health care solutions to help you feel your best. Take the first step toward a better night’s sleep – make an appointment today!
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Disclaimer: This article is made available for general, entertainment and educational purposes only. The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of Low T Center. You should always seek the advice of a licensed healthcare professional.