Do you sleep with a snorer? Or maybe you’re the snorer? Either one, snoring is a problem. It affects a lot of people. Folks, who are either snoring or affected by snoring, are, most likely, sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation leads to a lot of serious illnesses.
At least 25 million adults across the United States suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, a chronic condition that can leave you feeling tired during the day and lead to serious health complications, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
The worst part of the growing problem of snoring is that there are a lot of folks who don’t get themselves checked for it.
Moreover, there are many other people with sleep apnea who have not been diagnosed or received treatment.
Not a lot of people take snoring seriously. That’s the probably the reason why they don’t go for treatment. For couples, who face a snoring issue, the most common solution is to sleep in another room. That doesn’t exactly solve the issue because the snorer is the problem.
One, who snores heavily and habitually, could already be suffering from sleep apnea. With little knowledge about sleep apnea, the snoring is ignored and most of the time, tolerated. When snoring is ignored and tolerated, it could lead to a lot of health problems in the future.
Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when the muscles relax during sleep, causing the soft tissue in the back of the throat to collapse and block the upper airway.
When this happens, it limits the amount of air that reaches your lungs and deprives your brain and body of oxygen. In response, your brain alerts your body, causing you to wake up briefly so that you can breath normal again.
These interruptions in sleep, which can occur multiple times throughout the night, can cause you to feel sleepy during the day and can increase the risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, cancer and depression.
This not to scare everybody who snores. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t really mean that people who snore are already suffering from sleep apnea.
The most common sign of obstructive sleep apnea is loud and frequent snoring. However, not everyone who snores has sleep apnea. Snoring is likely to be a sign of sleep apnea when it is followed by periods of silence when airflow is reduced or blocked.
Additionally, people with sleep apnea will often make choking, snorting or gasping sounds when their airway reopens. Other symptoms of sleep apnea include:
• Daytime sleepiness or fatigue
• Unrefreshing sleep
• Insomnia
• Morning headaches
• Waking during the night to go to the bathroom
• Difficulty concentrating
• Memory loss
• Decreased sexual desire
• Irritability
While sleep apnea is a serious health condition, it can be treated.
The first step in treating obstructive sleep apnea is diagnosis through a sleep study that charts vital signs such as brain waves, heartbeat and breathing. Typically, studies are performed during an overnight stay at the Sleep Center at PMC. However, home sleep studies are also available for individuals who are unable to spend the night at the Sleep Center.
Once sleep apnea is diagnosed, there is a range of options for treatment depending on the severity.
For patients with mild sleep apnea, losing weight can help relieve the condition as can changing sleep position. It is recommended that patients with sleep apnea sleep on their side rather than their back and raise the head of the bed to reduce symptoms.
For moderate to severe sleep apnea, continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) remains the standard treatment to keep the airways open at night. Oral appliances similar to mouth guards are also available to help reposition the jaw and keep the airways open during sleep.
There’s really no need to wait until the snoring becomes worse. While it’s good to know that there’s a new treatment option for sleep apnea, it’s also good to know that light snoring could be treated at home.
Oral appliances and mouth guards can be used in cases where the person is simply snoring. One does not have to be diagnosed with sleep apnea to be able to use such snoring devices.
So why wait to be diagnosed with sleep apnea, when you can stop the snore with a snoring mouthpiece like https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/snorerx. The SnoreRX is the soonest and safest way to stop the snore.
