When you’ve had one bad night of sleep, it can be difficult enough to get through the day without incident, especially if your partner complains about your loud, consistent snoring. Now imagine experiencing poor sleep and annoyed comments from your bedmate on a regular basis! How can snoring cause so much trouble? What exactly does snoring mean and how can you fix it? Keep reading to learn more about this symptom and what the best treatment for snoring might be for you.
What Does Snoring Typically Mean?
Although there are a few other issues snoring can indicate, this symptom most often points to sleep apnea as the underlying problem. The most common type of this condition occurs when an obstruction (often facial tissue) blocks the airway, and the person’s breathing is interrupted. The body reacts by gasping or sucking in air, which creates flapping or snoring sounds in the throat.
Why Is It Important to Treat Snoring?
In and of itself, snoring can be extremely disruptive for your sleep as well as for your partner. In fact, snoring can get so bad that partners sleep in different rooms altogether and become unable to be intimate. Inadequate sleep can not only harm your relationships but also impair your daily brain functions, including memory, focus, and even mood regulation. You can become drowsier, grumpier, and suddenly unable to perform because you can’t achieve sufficient rest.
How Is Snoring Treated?
Assuming you have sleep apnea, which is diagnosed through a sleep study, you have a couple of options for treatment. For a long time, CPAP machines have dominated the market, but many patients find the device difficult to adjust to, loud and uncomfortable, and bulky. In fact, many patients stop using this machine, which pushes air continuously, and this choice lands them in the same situation as before. Sometimes, even those who use CPAP machines correctly still aren’t completely achieving better sleep because their case is so severe.
Thankfully, another option is available: an oral appliance. A small, custom appliance fits in your mouth and repositions your lower jaw while you sleep. The adjustment prevents facial tissue from blocking the airway, allowing you to breath regularly and calmly throughout the night. This alternative can be particularly appealing for those who travel often and who don’t like the sound and feel of CPAP therapy.
Other strategies may include losing excess weight, working with mental health experts in combination with other treatment(s), and more.
What Is the Best Treatment for Snoring?
As with many other conditions, sleep apnea and snoring can’t always be treated the same way. What works for one person may not for another. As a result, once you’ve received your diagnosis, your sleep dentist should carefully evaluate your case to see how you can best achieve sleep. However, those who do not like CPAP or need extra support often find oral appliances helpful and effective.
In the end, you won’t know what the “best” treatment is for you until you’ve been officially diagnosed and meet with a sleep dentist. They can help you identify which option can make restful sleep an reachable goal. Instead of struggling to get through the day and having relationship problems, you both can wake up ready to take on the world after a night without snoring.
About Beach Dental
At Beach Dental, Dr. Jason Parli and Dr. Alexis Gersten have acquired some of the industry’s most advanced technology to enhance treatment. For instance, our 3D cone beam CT scanner takes much more precise and detailed internal images than digital X-rays. With this information, we can recognize complex structures that may contribute to your sleep apnea, your need for dental implants, and other complicated problems. For more than 20 years, we have treated patients from Westhampton Beach, East Moriches, East Quogue, Westhampton, and Remsenburg-Speonk. Call our office at 631-325-0731 or visit our website to schedule your appointment with us!