Snoring is no laughing matter

Do you frequently wake up at night due to a sharp elbow to the ribs? Do your neighbors complain of the sound of sawing coming from your house late at night? Does your significant other refuse to sleep on the same floor of the house as you? If the answer to these questions is yes, you likely have a problem with snoring. Snoring is caused when the soft tissues of the back of the throat collapse upon the airway and then vibrate to produce that distinctive noise during breathing. This condition is not always just a nuisance for your family, but can be a very serious medical condition called sleep apnea. With apnea, the occlusion of the airway actually prevents air from reaching the lungs, which then stimulates the brain to wake the person up. This is characterized by a gasping or wheezing to force air into the lungs. If this occurs frequently over the course of an evening, you will feel very tired the next morning as if you got no sleep the night before; because you didn’t! Your body was waking you up constantly allowing you to breathe. There are direct links with sleep apnea and hypertension, stroke, and heart attack. The good news is that today there are multiple methods to prevent apnea from ruining your life. A Continuous Positive Air Pressure device is the gold standard to alleviate your issues, but for some they have difficulty using it. For those patients, a dental mouthpiece that gently positions the jaw forward, opening the airway, may be the answer. A sleep study is always advised to determine your condition and working in conjunction with that physician, we can tailor a solution to help you get a good nights sleep again.