Are you constantly fatigued throughout the day and find it difficult to focus? Does your sleeping partner complain of loud snoring? You may have sleep apnea. Many people are unaware that they have the condition because there are many ways it can manifest itself. Fortunately, we’re here to help. At Preston Bend Dental, we provide sleep apnea patients with oral appliances to help them get the quality rest they need. To learn more about sleep apnea treatment or to schedule an appointment, give us a call!
Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that causes breathing to become repetitively restricted during sleep. Snoring is the most common symptom as sufferers struggle to breathe during the night. This disorder is often caused by problems with your airway becoming obstructed during sleep, causing you to stop breathing and being unable to pull air into your lungs. If you experience any of the following symptoms, sleep apnea could be the culprit:
Snoring may seem like a harmless annoyance, but it can signal much larger issues. Left untreated, sleep apnea can result in many serious medical issues, including high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, and diabetes. If you suspect that you have sleep apnea, it’s crucial that you seek a diagnosis so you can get the treatment you need to prevent life-threatening health conditions from developing or worsening.
CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machines are a popular, effective option for addressing sleep apnea. This involves wearing a mask over your nose and/or mouth as you sleep. Air is constantly projected through the mask into the airway, keeping it open. While this method is lifechanging for those with severe sleep apnea, others find the mask to be bulky and the machine loud, making the entire experience uncomfortable and not ideal for sleep. Because of this, many CPAP users aren’t compliant with their treatment.
At Preston Bend Dental, we use a more conservative, comfortable alternative: oral appliance therapy. This is an appliance that is customized to fit in your mouth perfectly. It works by shifting the lower jaw in its optimal position, reducing the likelihood of obstruction during sleep.
Sleep apnea events or episodes can last anywhere from 10 seconds to two minutes. Depending on other factors, these episodes can occur 5-30 times each hour. Experts claim that 0-15 episodes per hour is “mild,” while 30+ episodes per hour is severe.
To determine the severity of your case, a sleep study is necessary. Not only will it provide your dentist with a clearer view of what kind of sleep apnea you’re dealing with, but it will also indicate how often you experience apnea events.
Just because you exhibit certain symptoms of sleep apnea doesn’t mean you can officially diagnose yourself. While countless products on the market, including Apple watches, claim to be able to detect this kind of condition, they don’t offer a comprehensive look at the situation. A sleep study is the only way you can receive a formal diagnosis by a licensed physician. This will provide essential information about the type of sleep apnea you have, which will dictate the kind of treatment you receive.
Yes, children are not immune to sleep apnea. It can affect them as well; in fact, between 1 and 8 percent of all children have a sleep breathing disorder. What makes it different than an adult experiencing sleep apnea are the symptoms children experience. Some of these include bedwetting, night terrors, difficulty learning and staying focused, and hyperactivity.
When determining whether a child has sleep apnea, the same process used on adults can also be used on younger individuals – a sleep study and analysis by a qualified sleep doctor before appropriate treatment based on your child’s needs.
If you start by wearing a CPAP device, you should expect it to take some time before you get used to it. However, with an oral appliance, your obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is likely to improve almost immediately. It can take a few nights to adjust to wearing the oral device, so don’t get frustrated if it doesn’t happen right away. The only way to really know if the appliance is working properly is to inquire about another sleep study. However, there’s a good chance your symptoms will begin to improve, which means it’s working.
