After a Sleep Disorder Diagnosis, When Can You Consider Yourself Cured?

Until you find a treatment that really works, a sleep disorder can turn your life upside down. And even if you feel cured—whether it's thanks to a breathing machine to open obstructed airways or cognitive-behavioral therapy to put your mind at ease—you may still experience at least an occasional sleepless night.

So what does it mean to be successfully treated for a sleep disorder? That depends on your condition:

Sleep apnea
For people with sleep apnea who frequently stop breathing at night, there are real numbers that doctors use to measure success. The goal is to raise your lungs' oxygen saturation back up to a healthy 90%, according to Ralph Downey III, PhD, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California. In many cases, this is as simple as using a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine each night to keep air flowing into the lungs.

CPAP therapy is not a cure, however; patients who find success with a breathing machine need to use it every night indefinitely, and can only stop if their apnea improves by other means—possibly through weight loss or surgery. Reducing fatty tissue around the neck area or enlarging narrow nasal passages can produce permanent results for some people, while others are plagued with sleep apnea forever.