Snoring / Sleep Apnea Solutions
Snoring / Sleep Apnea Solutions
IQ Dental is North Vancouver's choice for comprehensive dental care. We offer a full range of general dentistry services to ensure your smile is healthy, radiant, and enduring.
Getting more sleep is a significant priority for many Canadians. For those who have sleep disorders such as snoring and sleep apnea keeping them up at night, it can be a challenge. The good news is that there are plenty of treatment options available, including oral appliances that can restore the air passages and lead to a full night of sleep and better overall health.
Custom-Made Oral Appliances for Sleep Disorders
Oral appliances can help reduce the negative effects of sleep disorders. People with these disorders tend to suffer from side effects, such as daytime sleepiness. These effects can impact your lifestyle and cause other health problems.
In many cases, our dentists will recommend a custom-made appliance that fits your mouth and is designed with your specific needs in mind.
Sleep Disorders
Two of the most common sleep disorders that can be treated with oral appliance therapy are snoring and sleep apnea.
Snoring
Snoring is the result of air being obstructed as it passes through your mouth, nasal passages, and throat while you sleep. The result is a vibration in the nearby tissue, which leads to the noise we all associate with snoring.
Not all people snore, and sometimes, snoring can come and go with life changes. It can also be loud and constant or soft and infrequent.
Many people wonder why snoring happens and what actions they can take to stop snoring. Snoring is often the result of a combination of factors that range from your genetics to your physiology to your lifestyle.
Some of the most common factors that lead to snoring include:
- Sinus issues
- The shape of the roof of your mouth
- The consumption of alcohol and tobacco
- Colds
- Allergies
- Being overweight
- Injuries that cause jaw misalignment
- Age
- Nose and throat conditions, such as enlarged tonsils or a deviated septum
- Sleeping position
Snoring can also be a sign of a more serious problem known as sleep apnea. If you snore often and you notice other disturbances in your sleep, such as gasping or wheezing, be sure to see a doctor or dentist to be tested for sleep apnea.
Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea is a disorder in which patients start and stop breathing throughout the night. This is usually the result of relaxation in the muscles at the back of your throat. When these muscles relax too much, surrounding tissues such as the soft palate, tongue, and nasal passages also relax, which can cause the airway to narrow.
Sleep apnea reduces the amount of air a person breathes in, which also lowers the blood’s oxygen level. This is why sleep apnea can be a dangerous condition with serious health concerns.
A common sign of sleep apnea is waking up abruptly multiple times throughout the night. When the brain senses that the oxygen level in the blood is low, it wakes you up so that your air passages reopen. In most cases, the interruption to sleep is so short that you won’t remember waking up at all, but your sleep partner may.
Sleep apnea can interrupt normal sleep phases and prevent you from achieving deep sleep throughout the night, which is why many people with the condition find themselves feeling sleepy throughout the day.
Sleep apnea is often linked to a variety of other illnesses and conditions, including diabetes and obesity. It can also have severe effects on the cardiovascular system, putting patients at risk of hypertension, strokes, and heart attacks.
If you believe you have sleep apnea, your dentist can perform a variety of tests and examinations to check the tissues in your air passages. After that, a sleep study (at home or in a sleep clinic) may be necessary to confirm the diagnosis.
Why IQ Dental?
We are dedicated to cultivating confidence in our patients that keeps them smiling in and out of the office. Our priority is providing the people of Vancouver with effective dental care at a competitive price.
IQ Dental’s expert team of doctors and hygienists have a combined total of over 50 years of dentistry experience.
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