What Are the Treatment Options for Patients with Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea is a severe sleep-related disorder that causes repeated interruptions and starts with breathing. Sleep apnea might affect you if you snore loudly or wake up exhausted after a whole night’s rest.

Sleep apnea affects patients in three different varieties. They are:

• Obstructive Sleep Apnea: OSA occurs when your throat muscles relax and commonly affects most people.
• Central Sleep Apnea: When your brain doesn’t signal the muscles controlling your breathing CSA occurs.
• Central Sleep Apnea Syndrome: Alternatively called treatment-emergent central sleep apnea, it is a condition occurring if you have OSA and CSA.

You must seek sleep apnea treatment in Oakland, CA, if you think you are affected by its symptoms. Early treatment helps ease your symptoms and might prevent complications besides cardiovascular problems.

What Are the Symptoms of Sleep Apnea?

The symptoms of CSA and OSA overlap, making it challenging to determine which condition affects you. However, the common signs of OSA and CSA include loud snoring, episodes when you stop breathing when sleeping reported to you by your bed partner, gasping for air when sleeping, awakening with a dry mouth, headaches in the morning, challenges staying asleep, excessive daytime sleepiness, lack of attention when awake, and irritability.

Sleep Apnea Causes

• Obstructive Sleep Apnea: OSA occurs when your throat muscles relax. The triangular tissue hanging from the soft palate receives support from the muscles to narrow the airway when breathing. The narrowing ensures you don’t get sufficient air and lowers oxygen levels in your blood. Your brain recognizes your inability to breathe and wakes you up from sleep to reopen your airway. The awakening is generally brief to make you forget it. Unfortunately, the awakening is accompanied by snorting, choking, and gasping. The pattern repeats itself five to 30 times every hour throughout the night, hindering your ability to get restful phases of sleep.
• Central Sleep Apnea: CSA isn’t typical like OSA and occurs when your brain doesn’t transmit signals to your breathing muscles. It indicates you make no effort to breathe for brief periods and might awaken because of shortness of breath or face challenges getting the sleep you need.

What Is the Most Effective Treatment for Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea treatment differs between patients depending on whether they are affected by mild or severe cases. For example, you might receive a recommendation for mild sleep apnea to make lifestyle changes like losing weight and quitting smoking. In addition, if nasal allergies bother you, you receive suggestions for treating the allergies. However, other remedies are available to alleviate your situation if the therapies don’t improve the signs and symptoms or if you have moderate or severe sleep apnea.

Some devices can open up your blocked airway, but you might require sleep apnea surgery in other cases.

If having mild to moderate sleep apnea, you benefit from CPAP therapy, delivering air pressure through a mask when sleeping. The CPAP device provides air pressure more significantly than the surrounding air to keep your upper airway passages open to prevent snoring and apnea. Unfortunately, you might find the CPAP device uncomfortable because it is cumbersome. However, with practice, you can adjust to the tension of the straps on the mask to get a comfortable fit.

You can also consider a dental appliance for sleep apnea customized explicitly for your mouth by dentists. The oral appliance helps keep your throat open and is easy-to-use than the CPAP device. These devices are designed to bring your jaw forward and open your throat, which helps relieve mild OSA. Your dentist provides various devices making it essential for you to try different appliances before you find one best suited.

What Is the Success Rate of Sleep Apnea Surgery?

Surgery for sleep apnea is an option after alternative treatments have failed to deliver results. Medical professionals suggest using other options for at least three months before surgical options. However, if you have jaw problems, sleep apnea surgery is an excellent first option.

General anesthesia causes problems with surgery for obstructive sleep apnea. In addition, you might likely confront complications after undergoing severe surgery because you are vulnerable to breathing problems when sedated and lying on your back. Therefore if suggested the surgical option, you must discuss its risk factors with the doctor treating you. In addition, there are many surgical procedures for sleep apnea with different success rates. Therefore the process you have determines whether the success rate of the operation which can vary from 50 to 60 percent. Consequently, a discussion with your doctor is essential if suggested surgery to alleviate the problems associated with sleep apnea.

If your bed partner complains about your snoring and you experience its after-effects during the day, you find it beneficial to schedule a meeting with Franklin Dental Care providing appropriate sleep apnea treatment near you. Therefore consult with the practice today to overcome this problem that creates havoc with your quality of life.