MICHAEL Chiew used to get sleepy while driving outstation on business trips.
At first he stopped at petrol kiosks for ice-creams, but when his brushes with accidents became too frequent to ignore he hired a driver.
At home Chiew, 48, snored to the point that even his wife would kept awake at night. He would also suddenly wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air and in the morning he would feel like he barely slept.
For three years since the onset of his "extreme tiredness" an obese Chiew with dark bags under his eyes went for numerous medical checkups, related his snoring, unusual fatigue, morning headaches and excessive daytime sleepiness.
But the diabetic who is also suffering from hypertension forgot to tell the general practitioner that he was nodding off at the wheel, a detail vital for the diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).
Sufferers of OSA stop breathing repeatedly during sleep, sometimes for as long as a minute, and this happens hundreds of times at night.
As Chiew's upper airway repeatedly collapses during sleep his body becomes oxygen drained and his brain signals the body to wake up. This causes him to wake up, struggling to breathe.
A specialist correctly diagnosed the problem and Chiew began using continuous positive airway pressure therapy, which is a non surgical method of treating the problem.
With this therapy, Chiew uses a mask which is connected to a a machine that releases a gentle stream of air pressure into the nasal passage.
This prevents airway collapse and Chiew now breathes easier when he sleeps.
But his testimony during a roundtable discussion hosted by Philips Malaysia was cause for concern -- why aren't doctors digging deeper into sleep-related problems?
The businessman was obese, diabetic, suffering from high blood pressure. He had also told the doctor that his concentration and thinking were impaired.
These were all tell-tale signs of OSA, said Sleep Disorder Society of Malaysia president Professor Dr Syed Hassan Ahmad, a clinical psychiatrist from Selayang Hospital.
"The doctor may not have had the time to ask whether he was falling asleep while driving, but he is still responsible for the diagnosis.
"Every doctor regardless of his or her specialisation must conduct a system review on the patient.
"This includes routine background questions on the general well being of the patient, and appetite and sleep are two of them."
He said doctors were often too carried away by spin-off diseases such as diabetes than to explore the likelihood of a sleeping disorder being the root cause of such symptoms.
Dr Syed Hassan urged those suffering from sleep related problems to relate details of every symptom during consultation with doctors.
Untreated sleep apnea can also cause depression, impotence, memory problems, weight gain and a variety of cardiovascular diseases. -NST
