Dr. Katz, iHATEheadaches Blog

"Almost every morning I wake up with a headache," my neighbor was telling me "and I've had this headache all day. I've been to my doctor but he couldn't find anything wrong. And to make matters worse, I'm tired all the time. My doctor suggested I see a neurologist but I saw a neurologist a few years ago and he could find nothing either. I feel run down and my relationship with my wife is suffering, if you know what I mean." I felt a bit uneasy with this piece of information but it encouraged me to give my neighbor a bit of information that I felt could definitely help him.

It is well known across many studies that headache patients exhibit a two to eight fold risk of sleep disorders than the general population. The sleep disorder most implicated with headaches
is obstructive sleep apnea. Treatment of obstructive sleep apnea can improve and in some cases resolve headaches.

So I asked my neighbor Ed, "do you snore a lot." " Do I snore a lot? My snoring is so bad I have to sleep in the guest room. My wife can't sleep with me in bed. She says the pictures on the wall shake when I snore." I went through a list of questions with Ed and the answers he gave me convinced me that Ed probably had obstructive sleep apnea.

Ed was was sleepy all the time, sometimes falling asleep at his desk at work.
On a few occasions, he's had trouble staying awake driving home from work. He laughed when he told me how he fell asleep at a stop sign for a brief second and woke up when the police car behind him began to honk his horn. Besides the snoring, his wife also told him that when he slept he would have episodes where he would suddenly wake gasping for air. He said he had no memory of it at all. What was really concerning him now was the fact that he was developing high blood pressure and that he was forgetting things more often.

Putting all these symptoms together convinced me that part of his headache problem if not all might be due to obstructive sleep apnea. A problem that effects over 40 million Americans.
I briefly discussed how obstructed air flow can produce his symptoms and it would be wise to at least eliminate obstructive sleep apnea as a causative factor for his chronic headaches and fatigue. A simple overnight test known as a polysomnogram could give him the answer that could very well give him the relief he's been looking for all this time. I sincerely hope he follows through. Ed said he'd keep me informed.