What to Do if You Suspect a Sleep Disorder

Dr. Kharazmi tells women what they should do and where they should go if they think they have a sleep disorder.

What should a woman do if she thinks she has a sleep disorder, where should she go? Again, if it’s felt that the patient has sleep disorder they really should be tested. We need to know why. What is the cause of it? Is it because they can’t fall asleep? Is it because that their sleep pattern is interrupted by abnormal movements? Is it because they have sleep apnea which is very common and because we’re a rapidly growing, physically growing population which is associated with obstructive sleep apnea? Could be a product of medication or again, a lack of hormone production? All these can be causing an individual to have sleep disorder so really the best way to find out is to test that individual and a sleep lab would be the most appropriate place for that testing to take place. I think the other important aspect of it is this, is that, if you don’t know what you’re treating in terms of sleep disorder, you may actually cause more problems in terms of their physiology, cause more harm, such as giving them the sleep-enhancing drug. That actually can make things worse. Giving Benzodiazepines, a lot of them take Valium, pop a Valium because they can’t sleep or pop another medication because they can’t sleep. What that does is really causes you to become tired, but it doesn’t enhance your restorative sleep. It reduces your REM sleep and it causes more problems long term, it causes more problems with reference to memory recall, cognitive impairment is associated with it. So at some point you really test individuals. Know where the problem lies and treat them accordingly.