Getting all wired up, hooked to monitors and caught on camera. How on earth could this lead to better sleep? For most who end up here at Pinnacle Health's Sleep Lab, it really could not get much worse.

"I was tired. I would wake up in the morning and not want to get up and take naps during the day and go to bed early, just tired all the time," Derek Heath said. He  learned he has Sleep Apnea which he suspected. His doctor sent him to the sleep lab for confirmation. "We are monitoring breathing, snoring, heart rate, brain waves...a little bit of everything," Health Technologist Linda Smith explained.

Approximately one in fifteen people have Sleep Apnea. They can stop breathing anywhere from ten to thirty seconds at a time, often several times during the night. It can lead to high blood pressure and can do a number on the heart.

"You're just working hard all night. It's like you're in a marathon trying to catch your breath all night because you stop breathing and then you start again," Linda Smith continued.

After spending a night, sometimes two, a sleep technologist can tell if you have Sleep Apnea. If you do, a C-PAP mask is prescribed to wear over your nose, sometimes your mouth, to put an end to the sleepless nights. It acts like a splint that supports open airways.
"It's just filtered room air that comes into the nose and down the windpipe to keep it open...and that's why I like to say it's a splint because it keeps it in the position it needs to be in," Linda Smith said.