One night you wake up because someone has just started a chain saw next to your head, and discover your charming bedmate, the one who’s never snored before, sawing logs in bed. Of course, he’s still sound asleep, but you’re now wide-awake. His snoring is so loud that you’re not likely to get back to the Land of Nod unless you move to another room. How could someone who never snored before suddenly start snoring? Several different conditions — both simple and more complex — can cause snoring,

If your bedmate tells you that you snore so loudly that he or she has to sleep in another room, and he or she can still hear you from that room, you may have sleep apnea, a breathing disorder marked by frequent interruptions of breathing during sleep. During an apnea episode, you completely stop breathing for at least 10 seconds. The struggle to breathe triggers an emergency alert response in your brain. You wake up just enough to open your airway and gasp for breath, and then fall right back asleep, usually without knowing what has happened. To meet the medical definition of sleep apnea, these episodes must occur at least five times per hour of sleep. Most people with sleep apnea suffer from 20 to 60 such episodes per hour during the night so they wake up feeling unrefreshed. Yet, many sufferers aren’t aware they have a problem.

Apnea is derived from the Greek word apnoia that means “without breath.” Hypopnea is a kind of abnormally reduced breathing that can also affect people with sleep apnea. Until recently, many medical professionals were still in the dark about sleep apnea and its implications for other health problems. Many family and primary care doctors still don’t look for signs of sleep deprivation in their patients who report excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), and fail to order additional tests when a patient complains that his or her bedmate snores so loudly it shakes the bedroom walls.

You may be saying, “Well, so what if I snore? I’m not going to waste a bunch of time and money getting treated for that!” Think again. Sleep apnea is a life-threatening condition that can lead to a variety of medical problems and even increase your risk of having an accident. And, the longer it goes untreated, the progressively worse it gets. So you may want to get it looked into after all. Today, not tomorrow.

Very loud snoring: Sleep apnea produces distinctive snoring. As sleepers repeatedly struggle to reopen their collapsed airways and suck in great gulps of air, they produce an amazing assortment of gasps, gurgles, wheezes, alarming choking noises, grunts, and of course, snores. But these aren’t just any old snores; these are loud snores — snores that other people can hear and feel all over the house, snores that even your neighbors can hear with the windows closed.

Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS): If you wake up feeling like you haven’t slept, or have a tendency to nod off whenever you get still and quiet for a few minutes (say, at your desk at work especially after a large lunch, in business meetings, and even at the movies), not only is it embarrassing (and potentially detrimental to your career), but also another good clue that you may have sleep apnea. If EDS becomes severe enough, a person may inadvertently fall asleep without warning, which can be extremely dangerous, especially if the individual is operating heavy equipment (like an automobile).

Interrupted breathing: If your bedmate tells you that you woke him or her up with your snoring, and then you really woke him or her up when you stopped breathing altogether, you can bet you probably have sleep apnea.

Nighttime heartburn: If you experience heartburn during the night or upon waking, you may have sleep apnea. The attempt to breathe against a closed airway increases pressure in your chest, which forces the contents of the stomach upward. If this happens continuously, the soft tissue valves that prevent gastric juices from flowing backwards may fail, and you’ll have acid reflux in your throat and mouth. The result isn’t just a bad taste, but a fit of coughing and possibly spasms of your larynx.

Decreased daytime alertness: If you’re normally a pretty sharp tack, but realize you’re no longer as alert as you used to be, you may be suffering from sleep apnea, especially if you have one or more other symptoms. Decreased alertness makes you more prone to accidents and more frequent mistakes, memory loss, and instances of impaired judgment.

Irregular heartbeat: The repeated oxygen deprivation and negative chest pressure produced when you attempt to breathe against a closed airway caused by sleep apnea can damage your heart and trigger an irregular heartbeat. Continued oxygen deprivation may stimulate the body to overproduce red blood cells, resulting in a condition called polycythemia, which also contributes to right heart failure.

These are just a few examples of sleep apnea symptoms. If you feel you may have sleep apnea, you should visit your Doctor right away.