Snoring may be typical but it is not normal!
Does your snoring bother anyone?
Do you feel fatigued upon waking?
Contact Us Now!
As an airway-focused dentist, Dr. Caughey has received specialized training in dental sleep medicine, which can help break the cycle of poor sleep quality and chronic fatigue. There are various treatments and appliances, but the goal for these snoring sleep apnea appliances is the same: to open the airway and improve quality of life. With treatment, most of our patients report waking more refreshed and experiencing fewer morning headaches.
Here is the big question we ask in every case: what is the root cause of the sleep disordered breathing? Is the upper jaw too narrow to house the tongue? Does the bite force the lower jaw back, pushing the base of the tongue into the airway? Is the anatomy of the back of the mouth shaped in a way that the soft palate drapes too low over the tongue? Is the airway in the nose insufficient (either functionally or architecturally) to allow for nasal breathing? Is acid reflux causing the hypopharynx to swell? We ask these questions of all of our patients from age 3 to 103, and how we manage them will vary based on age and stage of life.
The process starts with a thorough evaluation, and frequently a referral from a sleep physician (ENT, primary care, or pulmonologist) with a prescription for the service. Patients who typically seek an oral appliance for sleep apnea and snoring treatments may have tried C-PAP therapy and failed it – frequently due to claustrophobia, mask leakage, or poor acceptance by a bed partner. One of the biggest complaints we hear from C-PAP intolerant patients is that they have trouble EXHALING. The strength of the airflow needed to keep the oral and pharyngeal tissues open is often too high for the passive release of air back out of the body.
Many patients who snore are completely unaware that they have bouts of sleep apnea; they may feel they sleep fine and that the bed partner is exaggerating the issue. This can lead to another type of disordered sleep condition for the bed partner: insomnia and hypervigilance. Treatment for the dynamics becomes critical for both partners to feel refreshed in the morning.
By improving quality of sleep over time, mental concentration and an increased sense of well-being returns. In addition to feeling better, our patients can expect to have clinical evidence of improved air flow while wearing the snoring sleep apnea appliance. During the initial six week period of fitting and adjusting the settings on the snoring sleep apnea appliance, a patient will be asked to take home the sleep monitoring device so that we can measure the results and make changes for the ideal outcome.
If you have not yet been diagnosed as having sleep apnea, but seem to suffer chronically from fatigue, you may indeed have a sleep disordered breathing condition that is relatively easy to treat. To see if your fatigue may be related, check your sleepiness level on the free Epworth Sleepiness Scale here: http://epworthsleepinessscale.com/1997-version-ess/
See posts related to sleep-disordered breathing, https://caugheydds.com/category/snoring-and-sleep-apnea-dental-solutions/
