Treatment For Snoring
Snoring is not just annoying, it can signal a serious health issue. It’s often the first sign of obstructive sleep apnea, which can prevent people from getting restorative rest and leads to daytime drowsiness and problems with concentration and memory.
서울수면다원검사 It can also be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The good news is that there are several treatment options for snoring. Some are simple lifestyle changes while others involve a variety of medical procedures.
If you have snoring, start tracking your symptoms to see when and how you snore. This will help your doctor determine the severity of the problem and recommend a treatment plan.
Non-surgical treatments include lifestyle changes, adjusting your bedtime routines and throat exercises. These strategies can help reduce snoring by opening up your airway. You can also wear a mouthpiece during sleep that moves your jaw and tongue forward to improve air flow and reduce snoring.
Another option is to try sleeping on your side rather than your back. Snoring tends to be more common as you get older and losing weight can help because excess fat around the neck and throat can narrow your airway.
You can also use nasal sprays to clear your nose and throat and make snoring quieter. These can be obtained by prescription or over the counter from many chemists. Some patients find that drinking water, not alcohol, before bed helps to alleviate snoring because it acts as a muscle relaxant.
Some snorers are able to tolerate CPAP machines and these can help to ease snoring by increasing the amount of oxygen in your bloodstream during sleep. However, for some people a CPAP machine can be difficult to adjust to and they may not enjoy sleeping with it. These are the patients who can benefit from non-surgical snoring treatments such as mandibular advancement splints, which are similar to mouthguards and work by holding your lower jaw slightly forward when you sleep.
Snoreplasty involves a minor surgical procedure that can reduce snoring by removing some of the soft palate and uvula. It can be done under local or general anesthesia. Other surgeries to reduce snoring include laser-assisted uvulopalatoplasty (LAUP), which uses a laser to reduce the size of your uvula and soft palate, and radiofrequency-assisted palatal stiffening surgery, which uses low intensity heat from a radiofrequency probe to shrink and stiffen the tissues on your palate. 연세로의료의원
Surgical treatments can be expensive, but they offer the most long-term relief. They should only be considered if you have tried conservative interventions and have a definite problem with snoring that is negatively affecting your quality of life and the lives of those around you.
There are few randomized controlled studies for many of the major conservative (positional therapy, myofascial therapy, weight loss and mandibular advancement splints), and some surgical (decortication of the nasal septum, palatal implants and uvulopalatopharyngoplasty) treatments for snoring. However, the results from case control and observational studies are generally positive for most of these treatments.