How Sleep Apnea Affects a Partner's Health

Sleep apnea not only affects the patient's health, it also affects the person sleeping next to them. Having a partner with sleep apnea, especially when left untreated, can cause a number of different issues. It can even cause a rift between a couple if they let it.

While it may be annoying sleeping next to a person with sleep apnea, it's important to note that sleep apnea can have serious consequences. Medically defined, sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that is somewhat severe, where breathing repeatedly stops and starts.

If your partner snores loudly and complains about feeling tired when waking up, they may have the sleep disorder. Before we get into tips and solutions to help you and your partner, here is a basic understanding of the sleep disorder.

Types of sleep apnea

• Central sleep apnea occurs when your brain doesn’t send the proper signals to the muscles that control breathing.
• Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the most common form. It is a problem when the throat muscles relax. This is the type that causes snoring.
• Complex sleep apnea syndrome or treatment-emergent central sleep apnea occurs when you have both obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea.

If you believe you have any form of sleep apnea, it is essential to see your doctor. Treatment will ease symptoms, prevent heart problems and other complications and allow your partner to get the sleep they are craving.

How the symptoms affect the partner

Symptomatic of sleep apnea is the intense snoring, sputtering and cessation of breathing. Not a pleasant way to fall asleep for your partner or you. You almost fall asleep, but snoring coming from next to you causes you to sit up abruptly, lose your sleep pattern, want to hit your partner with a pillow.

Hitting your partner repeatedly with a pillow will not help, except to cause an argument, trying to turn your partner over, using earplugs or white noise, or even elbowing them will also not help. You spend your night staring at the ceiling or going to the couch. Don’t think this is a short-term problem; it is incurable but it is also treatable.

“Sleep apnea is often referred to as the disease of listeners,” claims Wendy Troxel, Ph.D., a senior behavioral and social scientist at RAND Corporation in Pittsburgh. The sleep apnea sufferer does not get a good night’s sleep; they are continually having issues sleeping and waking up tired and irritable.

 A sleeping partner is not immune from the effects of sleep apnea. You listen to the snoring, breaks in breathing, and panic when the breathing stops. The result? You don’t get the restful sleep you need. Dr. Troxel goes on to say, “Research shows that female partners of snorers are three times more likely to suffer from insomnia than partners of non-snores.”  Partners experience a sleep gap where their sleep is affected just as much as the patient.

When a partner’s sleep patterns are disturbed by a snorer, they experience irritation, lack of attention during the day, don’t get the healing sleep they need and suffer from physical and mental health conditions. There isn’t a plethora of studies or information on what sleep apnea does to women partners, and Monica Mallampalli, Ph.D., a scientific expert on women’s’ health in Maryland, claims this is due to misunderstandings and the one-size-fits-all mindset. She said, “in the 1970s women of reproductive age were barred from participating in clinical trials (out of fear that researchers risked damaging a fetus if the women became pregnant during a study). Men were only asked to participate.  Data was applied to women as well. However, a one-size-fits-all assumption is not valid, and as a result, women’s health has suffered." Women will talk to their doctors about sleep deprivation and blame their insomnia on an uncomfortable bed, stress, or even electronics. Rarely, if ever, are partners accused as being the source of insomnia. 

Read on to learn more about how sleep apnea can affect a partner, and what exactly a partner can do to help.