Sleep Apnea and Your Beauty Rest

Sleep apnea affects 5 to 10 percent of adults in America, however most people live their lives undiagnosed. In fact, loud snoring is a dangerous symptom of sleep apnea, yet is overlooked by most of the population.
Aside from more serious health concerns, sleep apnea typically can affect your natural sleeping patterns. Irregular sleeping patterns can be hard on your body, both in the day and in the night. In the night, you could experience choking, gasping, constant urination, and restless sleeping habits. All of these symptoms could keep you from getting the rest you need to function. In the day, you could experiences headaches, fatigue, depression, and sleepiness. Anything that hinders your sleeping routine can have other results too, as sleep is vital to our health, happiness, and anything in between!
Worse, if you have a sleeping partner, they could be more affected by your sleep apnea than you are! People with sleep apnea will sometimes choke and cough in the middle of the night. They even might have long intermittent pauses in between their breaths. This, of course, can insite panic as the person essentially stops breathing. Depending on your age and health, this could cause anxiety in your partner.

Sleep Apnea Treatments

Sleep apnea treatment options are diverse, depending on how much you would like to limit the symptoms. For example, there are small processes you can do to aid your sleep apnea symptoms, and even make life easier for your partner. In this blog, we will discuss some of the treatment options that are at your disposal. However, in this blog, we are excluding the most popular sleep apnea treatment: CPAP masks. Though this is a successful form of treatment, the machines still can be noisy while turned on, which is disruptive to your partner. In this blog, we will only discuss sleep apnea treatment options that will not only help you, but your partner get a better night’s rest.

Weight Loss

Weight loss is the least invasive treatment option that can help reduce the severity of your symptoms. No matter what, losing weight is a good way to keep your body healthy. Whether you believe that losing weight can be beneficial to your sleep apnea symptoms, it has been proven to improve and even eliminate sleep apnea symptoms. But, how?

Sleep Apnea: A sleeping disorder that occurs when your upper airway becomes blocked repeatedly during sleep.

Because the airway is blocked during the night, air flow is cut off which causes the body to stop breathing. Also, your throat makes noise while it attempts to get more air to leave your body while you sleep. When you have extra weight on your body, you could have excess tissue that could be causing the blockage in the first place.

Sleep Apnea Mouthpiece

Mouthpieces for sleep apnea have been found to be a great, non-invasive way to help with sleep apnea. Because the disorder is primarily a breathing and air flow issue, it makes sense that the problem could be solved as easy as fixing the position of the mouth.
The sleep apnea mouthpiece prevents the airway from being blocked by holding the tongue in positions or by moving the patient’s jaw slightly forward. Either moving the tongue or the jaw are effective methods and help patients sleep without the severity of their symptoms.

Andrew S. Curry D.D.S.

Andrew S. Curry D.D.S is a skilled dentist that can fit you with your own mouthpiece for sleep apnea. If your symptoms have grown uncontrollably and are taking a toll on your beauty rest or your partners, it is time to seek help. Our practice is more than prepared to help you and give you a non-invasive method to help your symptoms. Contact us today!