Breathing stops and begins during sleep is sleep apnea, a potentially dangerous sleep disease. You may have it if you snore loudly and still feel exhausted after a whole night’s sleep.
Sleep apnea is one sort of sleep disturbance that might adversely affect health. When you sleep, it causes your breathing to pause sometimes. This is connected to your throat’s muscles relaxing. Your body often awakens when you stop breathing, which prevents you from getting a good night’s sleep.
What Are Different Types of Sleep Apnea?
Based on what causes breathing disturbances, there are many forms:
Obstructive Sleep Apnea
When the airway in the back of the throat narrows or closes down while a person sleeps, it is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which can result in snoring since the air cannot regularly move through. A person often awakens in response to the blockage of their airway, contracts the muscles in their throat, and exhales repeatedly or deeply, frequently accompanied by sounds like snorting or coughing. The most prevalent kind is OSA.
Muscles at the back of the throat relax while people with obstructive sleep apnea sleep, making it harder for air to pass through. When the airway is blocked, like when snoring occurs, a person cannot breathe deeply enough. As a result, partial or total awakenings are brought on by the absence of oxygen to restart airflow. During sleep, these breathing pauses continually occur.
Central Sleep Apnea
Communication breakdown between the brain and the breathing muscles is a symptom of central sleep apnea (CSA). As a result, respiration may become shallower, and you may experience brief pauses.
When your brain fails to communicate with your breathing muscles, you get this less frequent type. In other words, you briefly stop breathing without trying. As a result, you can experience breathing problems when you wake up or have trouble falling or staying asleep.
Complex Sleep Apnea Syndrome
It is the most severe type, known as complex sleep apnea syndrome, affects those with both obstructive and central types. This illness necessitates a thorough therapy strategy that tackles each symptom individually.
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Symptoms of Sleep Apnea
It can be challenging to distinguish between obstructive and central sleep apneas since their symptoms sometimes overlap. However, the following are the most typical signs of central and obstructive ones:
- Obnoxious snoring
- Episodes where you stop breathing as you sleep, which someone else might notice.
- Sleeping while gasping for breath
- Waking up with a dry mouth
- Daily headaches
- The inability to fall asleep, which is often known as insomnia
- Hypersomnia, or excessive daytime drowsiness
What Are the Different Treatment Methods?
Depending on the severity of your sleep apnea and general health, several surgical alternatives exist for treating it:
Lingual Tonsillectomy
Your tonsils and the tonsillar tissue close to the back of your tongue are removed during this treatment. To facilitate easy breathing, your doctor could advise using this method to open up the lower part of your throat.
Advancement of the Genioglossus
The doctor gently tightens the tendons in the front of your tongue to advance the genioglossus. Doing this can stop your tongue from rolling back and obstructing your breathing.
Decrease of Volumetric Tissue via Radiofrequency
A doctor could advise radiofrequency volumetric tissue reduction (RFVTR) if you cannot use a breathing apparatus like a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine. By shrinking or removing tissues at the back of your throat during this surgery, your airway will be more accessible. However, it could be helpful for sleep apnea; remember that this technique is often for curing snoring.
Maxillomandibular Advancement
Jaw repositioning is another name for this technique. You must forward your jaw to make extra room behind the tongue. This could widen your airway.
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Looking for Sleep Apnea Treatment in St. Clair, Toronto?
Depending on the underlying reason, several surgical treatments for treating sleep apnea exist. Choose the operation that will most benefit your condition in consultation with your doctor. If you have any questions left on the matter and live in Toronto, contact us at Smile Dental and book an appointment so that our skilled dentists help you choose the best treatment for yourself.
