If you are someone who suffers from sleep apnea, we empathize with your struggle. Sleep apnea is a serious sleeping disorder where when a person falls asleep, their breathing repeatedly stops and starts, causing loud snoring and still feeling tired after sleeping through a full night. Luckily, there are various treatment methods that can be used to lessen the effects of sleep apnea and sometimes even make it go away completely.
If you snore but haven’t had a chance to participate in a sleep study, then we would be happy to refer you to fantastic sleep doctors for a study and diagnosis first. Unlike ads you’ve seen on TV and Instagram, this is a medical condition diagnosed and managed by your physician. Dentists and the sleep study lab are partners in that process.
In this blog, we will be sharing what sleep apnea treatment options are available and the various benefits of each of them.
The benefits of mouth guards for sleep apnea
- Shifts your lower jaw forward to open your airways and is custom-made for you
- Keeps the tongue positioned forward using suction
- Prevents fluttering in the back of the mouth that creates noise when you sleep
- 90% as effective and twice as likely to be used by patients than CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure)
- A good option if you or your sleeping partner hate your CPAP
- Not expensive and available without a prescription
The benefits of BPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure)
- Pushes out air to keep the airway open throughout the night
- A good option for sleepers who have trouble exhaling into the stream of higher-pressure air coming from a CPAP machine
- Prescribed to people who also struggle with severe obesity or other serious health conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or hypoventilation
The benefits of supplemental oxygen
- Prevents fluttering in the back of the mouth that creates noise when you sleep
- Pushes out air to keep the airway open throughout the night
- Creates less of a strain on the body to breathe while sleeping
The benefits of adaptive servo-ventilation
- Rather than delivering a set level of air on inhalation and exhalation, ASV is programmed to release customized air pressure that is able to adapt in real-time to anticipate and respond to central apneic events
- Used to treat Cheyne-Stokes respiration, a specific pattern of breathing that sometimes occurs due to heart failure
- May be especially useful for people who have CSA due to drug or medication use
The benefits of treatment for associated medical problems
- Radiofrequency tissue reduction removes tissue blocking the airway with a high-frequency current and can be used to stiffen and reduce the size of the soft palate
- A uvulopalatopharyngoplasty removes part of the uvula and soft palate
- An adenoidectomy is able to help clear the airway by removing the adenoids
- A tonsillectomy removes the tonsils
- A tracheotomy involves creating a hole in the neck so that air can enter directly into the windpipe through a tube
The benefits of surgery
- Genioglossus advancement surgically advances the tongue forward in the mouth, making it less likely to fall back and block the airway
- Hyoid suspension alters the tongue’s placement to open up the airway
- Midline glossectomy involves removing part of the tongue in order to reduce the space it takes up and clear the airway
The benefits of weight loss
- Research shows that for many people, losing weight can lead to an improvement in sleep apnea symptoms and for this reason, medical professionals might recommend diet and exercise or even bariatric surgery to their obese patients with sleep apnea
- Avoid alcohol and sedatives in the hours before sleeping, if possible
- Quit smoking
As you can see, there are a multitude of ways that sleep apnea can be treated and each treatment method has its own benefits and success rates. We at Dr. Will Grella’s office care about our fellow human beings and understand the impacts that events have on people. We have a compassionate ear for the circumstances surrounding our clients’ lives and can relate to the effects they may have. We are committed to our client’s well-being and will be there for them. Our team’s professionals are vested in the successes of our patients and genuinely care about their accomplishments. Our patients can count on us.
If you have any further questions regarding sleep apnea or the treatment options available, please do not hesitate to contact us! We look forward to speaking with you and giving you the most updated and relevant information on the services we offer for those who suffer from sleep apnea, as well as answering any related questions that you might have. If you would like to make an appointment with us, please call us as soon as possible and we will do our best to accommodate your various dental needs.