When you first come in for a consultation, we find out what the problem is and determine what type of a sleep study we are going to do. For the actual sleep study, we will have you at our sleep center between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. At this time, we will hook you up to electrodes in order to test you and watch your sleep and brainwave patterns, as well as your EKG and breathing patterns, heart rate, and oxygen saturation. Additionally, you have your own private room to sleep in while we monitor you, and our rooms are set up to make you feel at home and sleep comfortably. For your convenience, our treatments are almost always covered by insurance providers, and the hospital handles all of our billing.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea
At Pottsville Sleep Disorder Center, we use CEPAP and BIPAP therapy to help treat sleep apnea. While it is not a cure, CEPAP is a valuable treatment mask we put on you that forces air into your airways and creates continuous positive airway pressure (CEPAP). There is also a surgical procedure that can be done by an ear, nose, and throat doctor, but this only has about a 50% to 60% success rate.

Insomnia
Treatments for insomnia include medication, sleeping pills, and sleep aides. If the insomnia is caused by sleep apnea, then we treat it with the CEPAP or BIPAP. For cases caused by emotional stress, we normally send you to your family doctor to help treat the stress.

Narcolepsy
To determine if you suffer from narcolepsy, we do multiple sleep latency testing (MSLT), in which we perform four, 20-minute nap studies per day. Using this testing method, we look to see if you fall asleep, how quickly you fall asleep, and what stage of sleep you go into. Additionally, there are blood tests we can do to find narcolepsy, as well. Once testing is complete, there are medications that can be used for narcolepsy such as Ritalin™ or Provigil™, as well as stimulants to help you keep awake during the daytime.