Sleep Apnea
What causes sleep apnea?
As you sleep, the soft tissues in your mouth and surrounding your throat relax. As the tissues relax they fall toward the back of your throat, where they can partially or completely cover the airway.
When your airway is partially covered, the tissues vibrate and cause snoring. If the tissues completely cover your airway, you stop breathing. That’s when you have sleep apnea.
The number of times you stop breathing every hour is what doctors use to determine the severity of your sleep apnea. In severe cases, you stop breathing more than 30 times per hour.
What symptoms develop if I have sleep apnea?
The most common symptom of sleep apnea is loud snoring. Snoring does not automatically mean you have a problem, but 40% of those who snore have sleep apnea.
In addition to snoring, you may experience:
- Excessive fatigue during the day
- Morning headaches
- The need to urinate during the night
- Difficulty concentrating
- Memory problems
Most people with sleep apnea do not realize they snore or that they stop breathing during the night. Others in the household or their sleeping partner are often the first to comment on loud snoring.
How do doctors diagnose sleep apnea?
While your symptoms may strongly suggest sleep apnea, the only way to accurately diagnose the condition is with a sleep study. Often an in-lab study is recommended, but recently many patients have been able to do their sleep studies at home.
During the study you only need to attach the sensors to your fingers and chest and place a cannula (small tube) in your nose. Then, a device records your oxygen levels, breathing, and airflow while you sleep.
How is sleep apnea treated?
Treatment for sleep apnea depends on the severity and your other risk factors, often called comorbidities. For example, if your apnea is mild and you’re also overweight, losing weight may solve the problem.
Beyond lifestyle changes, sleep apnea can be treated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) or oral appliance therapy.
CPAP is often the first treatment recommended by doctors. You wear a mask, and air is continually pumped through the mask to keep your airway open.
An oral appliance can serve as your first line of treatment or as an option if you are unable tolerate CPAP. These dental devices treat mild to moderate sleep apnea just as effectively as CPAP.
After you place the appliance over your upper and lower teeth, it extends your lower jaw slightly forward. Moving the lower jaw forward enlarges the airway and prevents your tongue from falling backward.
At The Sleep & TMJ Group in Seattle, WA, we treat patients from all walks of life. While it's true that snoring is often an indication of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), you may be a snorer and not compromised by OSA. It's important that you learn whether you have any health risks and how an oral airway dilator can enable you to eliminate the social stigma of snoring.
For patients who live in and around the Seattle area, snoring management is much easier, more cost and time effective, and very discreet at our The Sleep & TMJ Group. If snoring is compromising your social relationships and puts you in embarrassing situations, the last thing you need to worry about is complex and costly treatments. That is why we take our patients seriously when they relay their fears of falling asleep in buses, autos, airplanes, and when traveling with groups. Chronic, loud snoring has even ended very personal, intimate relationships. We know that treating the problem succinctly is top priority for our patients and we work very hard to ensure your comfort and social confidence are restored.
The dramatic and emotional stories we hear from patients who have successfully treated their snoring are akin to stories we hear about major weight loss, or other huge, positive lifestyle changes.
Newly-designed oral appliances (OA) are very user-friendly and can simultaneously solve the snoring and airway problems for mild-to-moderate sleep apnea sufferers whose airway architecture, dentition, and health history are favorable for the device. For people with severe sleep apnea oral appliance therapy is now seen as the best choice for people who are unable or unwilling to use CPAP. OAs are now more adaptable for individual situations and temporary devices are more durable than ever.
Obstructive sleep apnea has been directly connected to serious and sometimes fatal medical conditions that were once associated with other causes. Determining whether a snorer has some level of OSA traditionally involved a complex, time consuming, and costly overnight procedure in a hospital-like setting. That protocol still remains the most comprehensive way to determine the cause and associated health risks of OSA but is reserved for the very mild or medically complex. Today, 80 percent of people can benefit from new simpler screening tools and more user-friendly solutions. This method of testing is favorable for patients who snore with no other existing co-conditions or comorbidities and can be done at home. The complicated barriers to eliminate snoring and related undesirable symptoms are now gone. Screening for health risk and oral appliance benefit is simple, convenient, non-invasive, non-surgical, and very compatible with an active lifestyle.
In Seattle, WA, The Sleep & TMJ Group specifically treats patients with snoring and obstructive sleep apnea. For patients in Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Redmond and Alaska who need treatment for sleep apnea or chronic snoring, please contact us. If you're a doctor who wishes to refer a patient, please use our referral form.
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