My patient, Tom, recently emailed me to say that since he started using his CPAP regularly, he has had no episodes of atrial fibrillation (a condition marked by an irregular heartbeat and one that greatly increases your chance of stroke). He is delighted to have a reprieve from this troublesome disorder and he attributes his success to the treatment of this sleep apnea with the CPAP machine.
Studies have shown that 80% of patients with atrial fibrillation have obstructive sleep apnea and a growing body of observational studies show that treating the sleep apnea with either CPAP or the oral appliance can keep the a.fib (atrial fibrillation) under control. Many electro-physiologists (the cardiologists who do cardio-ablations) will not do the ablation until a patient has a sleep study to investigate the presence of sleep apnea.
