Sleep apnea causes frequent pauses in breathing while a person is asleep. The president has had the condition for more than a decade.
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President Biden still had indentations on his face when he spoke at an event in Chicago on Wednesday.
President Biden has begun using a CPAP machine in recent weeks to help deal with sleep apnea, which causes frequent pauses in breathing while a person is asleep, White House officials said Wednesday.
When Mr. Biden left the White House on Wednesday morning for a speech in Chicago, he had indentations across both sides of his face from having worn the device, known as a continuous positive airway pressure machine.
“Since 2008, the president has disclosed his history with sleep apnea in thorough medical reports,” said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman. “He used a CPAP machine last night, which is common for people with that history.”
Mr. Biden disclosed his sleep apnea more than a decade ago, but his presidential doctor did not mention the condition in either of the two letters assessing his health in 2021 and 2023. In 2019, his doctor noted that Mr. Biden had undergone several nasal passage surgeries to help sinus symptoms.
A White House official said that those surgeries had appeared to help, but did not eliminate, the sleep apnea symptoms. The official, who asked for anonymity to discuss details about the president’s health, said that the president had begun wearing the CPAP device in recent weeks in an attempt to improve the quality of his sleep.
Michael D. Shear is a veteran White House correspondent and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who was a member of the team that won the Public Service Medal for Covid coverage in 2020. He is the co-author of “Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration.” @shearm
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Source: nytimes.com
