A survey of almost 5,000 patients who snore revealed that an overwhelming majority were sleeping in separate rooms from their partners. And because sleep apnea sufferers rarely get a good night's sleep, they wake up feeling tired, which can definitely lead to a lackluster sex life. "Young patients with apnea don't feel they have any energy -- some people, they get into depression," says Dr. Ali Vaziri from the Center for Corrective Jaw Surgery in Philadelphia, which did the survey and specializes in the treatment of snoring and sleep apnea. Studies have already shown there is a strong relationship between sleep apnea and erectile dysfunction. Since that apnea acupuncture how to stop snoring relationship was established in 1990, researchers have been looking for the underlying cause. "We found that people with severe sleep apnea have, on average, lower testosterone," says Dr. Max Hirshkowitz, an associate professor of psychiatry and medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, which has conducted two studies on the subject. Two other studies in the last decade, by the Sleep Disorders Center at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, Australia, found that after sleep apnea was treated, testosterone levels were higher and some sexual function was restored. The complications of snoring and sleep apnea, including high blood pressure, excessive daytime sleepiness, and increased risk of heart attack or sleep apnea masks how to stop snoring stroke, also can suppress a healthy interest in sex. The frequency of erectile dysfunction in sleep apnea patients, Hirshkowitz says, is "probably multi-factorial," with those factors including sleepiness, reduced oxygen consumption and reduced libido from lower testosterone. Giving patients testosterone makes sleep apnea worse, he adds. Giving them female hormones to lower their testosterone improves the sleep apnea, "but the cure is the worse than the disease," he says, because of impotence that could then result. The best treatment for sleep apnea, he adds, is continuous positive air pressure (CPAP), a mask that sleep apnea patients wear to hold the airway open and keep oxygen flowing freely as they products to stop snoring how to stop snoring sleep.
