Stop Snoring!
Snoring? Snoring is the result of the soft tissues of the throat vibrating. When you snore, your airway is partially blocked by these soft tissues, causing a decrease of air flow to the lungs and brain. Snoring can be a sign of Obstructive Sleep Apnea, a serious matter that can lead to:
- Memory loss
- Heart disease
- High blood pressure/ hypertension
- Stroke
- Diabetes
- Erectile dysfunction
- Depression and more…
Even without these more serious side-effects, snoring can leave you tired and irritable. Boonsboro Family Dentistry may be able to help. Read on to learn more about
sleep apnea and how we may be able to help – WITHOUT a noisy, cumbersome CPAP machine.
About Sleep Apnea
Sleep Apnea (from Greek, meaning “without breath”) is one of the most common sleep disorders in which breathing stops and then restarts again recurrently during slumber.
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), occurs when the airway temporarily collapses during sleep, preventing or restricting breathing for up to ten seconds or more. OSA patients will commonly suffer from low oxygen levels in the blood, high blood pressure and an overall decrease in the quality of life due to daytime drowsiness and headaches. Breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to minutes. Such events can occur several hundred times a night severely disrupting sleep.
Typically, normal breathing then starts again, sometimes with a loud snort or choking sound. The term “sleep-disordered breathing” (SDB) includes a spectrum of respiratory disorders ranging in severity from snoring to OSA.
Sleep apnea usually is a chronic (ongoing) condition that disrupts your sleep 3 or more nights each week. You often move out of deep sleep and into light sleep when your breathing pauses or becomes shallow.
This results in poor sleep quality that makes you tired during the day. Sleep apnea is one of the leading causes of excessive daytime sleepiness.Prevalence
Over 40 million Americans suffer from a sleep disorder, and 20 million suffer from OSA. Despite the high prevalence, 93% of women and 82% of men with moderate to severe OSA remain undiagnosed.
According to the American College of Cardiology, men are two times as likely to have sleep apnea (see visual at right).
However, a community-based study, found men are 8 times more likely to be treated for OSA than women. This suggests that the symptoms of OSA in women are often attributed to other conditions, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, and fibromyalgia.
Untreated OSA can severely affect quality of life, health and mortality. Clinical research shows that it is linked strongly to a range of serious, even life-threatening, chronic diseases such as stroke, heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, obesity and coronary heart disease.
SDB affects around 20% of the adult population¹, making it as widespread as diabetes or asthma. However, awareness is low and we believe that about 90% of people who have OSA remain undiagnosed and untreated. Along with an increasing understanding of the morbidity and mortality caused by SDB, this discrepancy has created one of the fastest growing segments of the respiratory industry.
Help is on the way: A medical disease with a dental solution!
You may be a good candidate for oral appliance therapy. Oral appliances are placed in the mouth and are worn much like an orthodontic appliance or sports mouth guard.
The appliance is worn during sleep to assist in preventing the collapse of the tongue and soft tissues in the back of the throat.
Advantages of Oral Appliance Therapy:
- Oral appliances are comfortable and easy to wear. Most people find that it only takes a couple of days to become acclimated to wearing the appliance.
- Oral appliances are small and convenient, making them easy to carry when traveling.
- Treatment with oral appliances is reversible and non-invasive.
Custom dental appliances for sleep apnea are covered by most medical insurance companies and Medicare.
Contact Boonsboro Family Dentistry about your sleep apnea TODAY!
Do you have Sleep Apnea?
Take a quick sleep apnea test to determine your risk for Sleep Apnea.
