Every night, soon after her husband and two kids went to bed, Robin Masters?s house would fill with the rumble of snoring. Her youngest, Blair, was always the loudest. ?You could hear him through the whole house,? she recalls. She never thought much of it, but when Blair began showing signs of being chronically tired and was getting sick all the time?so much so that he missed 50 days of junior kindergarten?she knew something was wrong.
The answer came after Blair was diagnosed with yet another bout of illness, this time pneumonia. A respirologist asked Masters if she thought her son, who was nearly four at the time, might have sleep apnea. The idea had never crossed her mind. ?I was always under the impression that it was older, overweight men who got it,? she says. To confirm the diagnosis, Blair underwent a sleep study. During the overnight observation, doctors found his tonsils and adenoids were partially blocking his airways, causing his breathing to be interrupted roughly 49 times an hour throughout the night. He was diagnosed with an extremely severe case of obstructive sleep apnea. What is sleep apnea"

Sleep apnea occurs when there are pauses in breathing at night; this causes oxygen levels to fall, and the body has to rouse itself to start breathing normally again. ?If this were a one-off, it wouldn?t be a problem,? says Indra Narang, director of sleep medicine at SickKids and assistant professor of paediatrics at the University of Toronto. ?But the problem ...