A 15-year-old male student who fell asleep all day went to the doctor suddenly with the cause

04/24/2022 08:11 GMT+7

A 15-year-old NKL case residing in Tay Ninh was taken by his parents to the Hospital of University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City for examination because he slept all day.

According to the child’s parents, the child snores at night, is always sleepy during the day, and falls asleep at school. At the nursery, you can sleep from 6 pm to morning.

Teachers many times even invited parents to come up because the children who went to school also fell asleep. Children also feel inferior to their friends but cannot fight sleepiness. On examination, the doctor found that the child had very large tonsils. Sleep polysomnography shows that children stop breathing when they sleep 30-40 times / hour.

The child’s parents reported that the child slept a lot since childhood and snored. Because the child’s father also snores and considers it normal. Until the teacher complained too much, he let the teacher take the test.

Children had tonsillectomy surgery and after 3 months, they stopped falling asleep and were able to integrate with friends. In this case, the doctors regretted that because the family took the child to the doctor too late, it took 10 years for the child to detect.

If the child is treated earlier, the child will receive surgery, reduce sleep apnea for the child, helping the child develop more comprehensively in terms of physical, mental, and learning quality for the child.

Associate Professor Nguyen Thi Hoai An – Director of An Viet General Hospital, specializing in otolaryngology, said that snoring is also dangerous for children. Ms. An met many patients who came to the clinic because she thought that both her husband and children snore, this is normal.

However, loud snoring in children can be a sign of sleep apnea. Associate Professor An emphasized that sleep apnea is not only found in adults but can also occur in children.

Photo of PGS An examining the patient.

Signs of snoring are common in children who are overweight, obese, children with abnormal facial bone structure such as children with down, tonsillitis, children with VA that affects the baby’s airway when sleeping…

In addition, the impact of allergic factors such as weather, dust, pollen, … can cause the tissues inside the nose and throat of the child to become inflamed and blocked, thereby leading to snoring. .

For children who snore regularly 3-4 nights/week, loud snoring, snoring like obstruction is an alarming situation for parents to pay attention to. Even falling asleep during the day can also be caused by poor snoring and insufficient brain oxygen at night.

In particular, sleep apnea in adults increases the risk of death, stroke, and mental and motor effects in children due to brain hypoxia. Children will lead to overweight and obesity, a vicious cycle of snoring, and obesity will follow children more.

Associate Professor An recommends that when seeing a child with snoring, parents should take the child to the doctor or the child will be wearing a sleep polysomnography device, the child’s snoring sound will be assessed to have sleep apnea. Children with sleep apnea can be diagnosed at 6 or 7 years of age. In younger children, it is difficult to assess sleep apnea.

With children snoring with abnormalities in the oropharynx, it is necessary to handle the abnormalities. The baby has large VA, tonsillitis is like a bunker placed in the baby’s airway, narrowing the child’s airway, the baby needs to be examined. The doctor can operate to treat the child, making his airway better.

As for obese children with sleep apnea, children must lose weight to reduce apnea. However, many patients are consulted and encouraged by doctors, but losing weight is difficult because the children do not cooperate.

Children’s snoring bedroom should limit their exposure to allergens that increase nasopharyngeal inflammation because if children have nasopharyngitis, they snore more. Keep the baby at a reasonable weight so that the baby does not become obese.

Should not see the child snoring but shake the child to wake him up because it makes the child uncomfortable, sleepless and affects the child’s life the next day.

The signs of snoring children need to go to a more specialized examination such as: Frequent loud snoring, panting children, prolonged bed-wetting for unknown reasons. Children have many behavioral and psychological changes such as: agitation and irritability, or daytime sleepiness.

K.Chi