It’s common for partners to complain about their bed partners. From snoring to thrashing, sleep disorders are not only detrimental to those afflicted, they can also be disruptive to their partners, leading to poor quality, interrupted sleep.
SleepWerx founder Terry L. Penner is a double board-certified nurse practitioner with more than four decades of experience in the medical field, and often sees patients who come in due to complaints from their partner. Terry even encourages partners to attend the appointments so the couple can identify treatment options together.
“There’s many times when spouses will come in and one person will say their spouse has been snoring for 30 years, yet their partner rolls their eyes,” said Terry. “Yet they’ve been sleeping that way for 30 years.”
While many try tips and tricks to treat sleep disorders, snoring and disruptive sleep movements are often symptoms of a health problem that needs to be diagnosed and treated by a professional in order to ensure the patient’s safety and resolve the underlying issue.
For example, someone thrashing in bed who finds their bed sheets strewn about each morning, may not be getting enough air while sleeping and is experiencing difficulty breathing.
“When someone’s not getting oxygen, or they’re breathing too shallow, oftentimes they’ll move around,” said Terry.
While Terry noted that snoring and thrashing aren’t always caused by an underlying health issue, like sleep apnea, it is common, and the patient needs to be evaluated by a sleep expert to rule it out as the cause.
Many couples also disagree on how to best cultivate an effective nighttime routine — one of the most common being when one partner needs background noise from a TV or other device in order to fall asleep.
“It’s common where one person needs the TV on to sleep and the other person needs dead quiet, and of course I recommend no TV,” said Terry.
Watching TV before bed, or using any electronics which emit light, can increase someone’s heart rate and make it more difficult to fall and stay asleep.
Due to the increased stress brought on by the pandemic, many people are experiencing more difficulty sleeping than ever. To help combat this, Terry offers telemedicine and in-office consultations to help patients resolve these sleep disorders and is often able to schedule an appointment within 48 hours of a request.
Once the patient completes the in-home sleep test and begins their treatment plan, they will often see results within just one week of treatment.
SleepWerx is located at 3514 N. Power Road, Suite 127, in the Selina Ashworth Building. For more information, visit mysleepwerx.com, or call (480) 571-8460.