What Are the Impacts of Sleep Apnea?
Deep, restful sleep helps the body repair and regenerate, enhancing your health and overall well-being. Sleep apnea can interfere with your quality of sleep, leading to a host of complications. At Guided Smiles Prosthodontics & Implant Center, we offer trusted sleep apnea solutions to provide you with lasting relief.
What Is Sleep Apnea?
Sleep apnea is a chronic and potentially serious sleep disorder that can impact your health in so many ways. It is characterized by repeated pauses in your breathing as you sleep, sometimes lasting more than 10 seconds. The brain, sensing the oxygen deprivation, briefly wakes you up so you can breathe once again. The sleep-wake cycle can happen dozens or even hundreds of times each night.
The most common type of sleep apnea is known as obstructive sleep apnea or OSA. It occurs due to the muscles at the back of your throat relaxing during the night, leading to the soft tissues collapsing and blocking your airway. Sleep apnea can develop at any age or stage of life. Risk factors include snoring, family history, being male, teeth grinding and clenching, a small jaw, a large neck circumference, large tonsils, or previous damage to the nose or throat.
What Are the Most Common Signs of Sleep Apnea?
Common warning signs and symptoms of sleep apnea include the following:
- Loud snoring is the most common warning sign
- Choking or gasping sounds during sleep
- Teeth grinding and clenching in your sleep
- Frequent morning headaches
- Waking up with a dry mouth or sore throat
- Insomnia or restless sleep
What Are the Impacts of Sleep Apnea?
Untreated sleep apnea can have serious impacts on your health and quality of life, including the following:
- Cardiovascular Problems: Sleep apnea has been shown to increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, and irregular heartbeats.
- Daytime Fatigue: Waking up repeatedly through the night can result in daytime fatigue, lethargy, and difficulty staying awake, impacting daily activities and performance.
- Increased Risk of Accidents: Being tired and drowsy can increase your likelihood of being involved in motor vehicle accidents or workplace injuries.
- Difficulty Concentrating: Patients with sleep apnea often report difficulty concentrating and memory loss, impacting their school or work performance.
- Mood Disorders: Lack of good quality sleep can lead to irritability, depression, anxiety, and frequent mood swings.
- Metabolic Issues: Patients with sleep apnea are often at a higher risk of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.
- Surgery Complications: Sleep apnea increases the risk of anesthesia and respiratory complications during and after surgical procedures.
- Unexplained Weight Gain: Disrupted sleep can lead to hormonal imbalances that can cause increased weight gain without changes in diet or physical activity.
How Is Sleep Apnea Diagnosed?
If you have sleep apnea symptoms, Dr. Blackmon may recommend a sleep study. This involves monitoring your breathing patterns, heart rate, and brain activity as you sleep. Sleep studies can take place in a sleep laboratory setting or even at home using portable monitoring devices.
How Is Sleep Apnea Treated?
Traditional sleep apnea treatment involves the use of a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine, which blows pressurized air through a mask you wear as you sleep. CPAP therapy helps open up the airways and prevents pauses in breathing through the night.
While some patients find that CPAP therapy provides them with the needed relief, others find the machine noisy and the hoses cumbersome, so they don’t sleep any better. If that’s the case, Dr. Blackmon may recommend oral appliance therapy.
Depending on your unique needs, Dr. Blackmon may recommend a mandibular advancement device, which you wear like a mouthguard to hold your jaw in a forward position and keep your airway open. Another option is a soft tissue repositioning oral appliance, a splint-like device that keeps your tongue in a favorable position to maintain an open airway. At Guided Smiles Prosthodontics and Implant Center, we offer various oral appliance options, and the right one for you will depend on your individual needs.
Sleep Apnea Treatment Near Me in Ponte Vedra, FL
Contact Guided Smiles Prosthodontics & Implant Center to learn more about oral appliance therapy for lasting sleep apnea relief. Dr. Blackmon, our accomplished prosthodontist, will recommend the ideal sleep apnea solution to get your sleep and your health back on track. Call us at 904-395-5501 or schedule an appointment online today!