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What
we do: Straightening | Snoring
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Your
snoring might bother your sleeping partner or it might bother
you yourself.
If your
partner is losing sleep due to your snoring, then he or she may
be less well rested and less cheerful. Sometimes it leads to sleeping
in separate bedrooms, and sometimes it strains a relationship, especially
if you show no concern at all for your partner’s quiet sleep.
Other problems tend to become magnified when one is not well rested.
Snoring
can also inhibit a person from dating or taking overnight trips
with friends involving sharing rooms, such as ocean cruises, hunting
trips and other forms of travel.
Your
snoring is likely to bother you personally if you have apnea,
which means you stop breathing. Many snorers get their tongues
caught in their throat for several seconds and they temporarily
stop breathing. This leads to insufficient oxygen in the brain,
too much carbon dioxide in the blood, and the person partially
awakens without noticing it. If this happens several times per
hour, you will not spend enough time in deep sleep to feel rested,
and you are likely to feel sleepy when you awaken, possibly with
a headache, and you are likely to feel sleepy during the day,
on the job, while driving, in meetings, etc.
Apnea
also raises the risk of stroke and heart attack, and is a dangerous
condition. A clue that you have apnea, besides feeling sleepy
during the day, is that your bed partner reports silent periods
followed by loud snorting as you resume snoring. Apnea can be
diagnosed by a sleep study using sleep-monitoring equipment.
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This
topic may have caught your eye if you are a snorer, or the spouse
of a snorer. Snoring is a sign of airway problems during sleep.
We are familiar
with sleep-disordered breathing and know what questions to ask
you and your spouse. We know how to examine the throat of the
snorer, and we know where to refer the snorer for additional information
such as a sleep study.
We will be happy
to explain to you what treatments are available, how effective
they are and where the treatments can be obtained. It is usually
possible to eliminate snoring.
We
have eliminated snoring for many people using an oral device which
holds the jaw forward.
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There
are many "drugstore" remedies, some of which work part
of the time; some are pills to reduce throat swelling, some are
lubricants to "oil" the throat tissue, some are nasal
expanders to open the airway and increase the positive pressure
in the throat.
There
are throat surgeries that sometimes help reduce snoring. Tonsillectomy
has often helped. For people with more severe apnea, surgery to
advance the jaws has successfully enlarged the throat. Occasionally
surgery to the soft palate helps to keep the throat open during
sleep.
There
are devices to help position the head better, such as pillows
that tip the head back (keeping the airwayopen), or pillows sewn
into the back of a nightshirt to prevent the sleeper from sleeping
on his or her back.
 There
is a medical device featuring a mask fitted over the nose that
pumps air into the mask to keep the airway inflated so the throat
does not collapse. This is used for people with more severe apnea.
There are also dental devices that grip the teeth and hold the
jaw forward, which enlarges the throat and usually eliminates
snoring.
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