How to treat your spouse’s snoring (How I treated my own snoring & you can too)…
This is the third & last part of this series of Tuesday Tips on snoring.
Click here to review Part-1: ‘Serious health risks associated with your spouse’s snoring’ &,
Click here to review Part-2: 9 steps you can take at your level for your spouse’s snoring
Today we will discuss what are the treatment
options available, whom should you consult, & my
personal story- how I have treated my own snoring.
So, let’s get started…..
Snoring can be an alarm for a much more
harmful condition known as OSA- Obstructive Sleep Apnoea.
What is OSA?
Obstructive sleep apnoea is a condition when
during the sleep, your spouse completely stops
breathing for a few seconds.
Yes!
Absolutely no breathing for a few seconds when
his tongue falls back on his throat completely
blocking his air passage. Then, his brain realizes that
the breathing has stopped and as a defence mechanism,
his brain wakes him up. He then either
turns in the bed, or coughs, or wakes up and thus
his tongue again gets raised from the
throat, air passage opens and breathing resumes.
When this complete stoppage of breathing take place
for more than a few times in a night, it is
diagnosed as obstructive sleep apnoea.
When you will consult a specialist doctor for
your spouse’s snoring, the doctor may advise him to
get a sleep study done to evaluate whether he is just
having a snoring, or is he also suffering from OSA.
Coming to the treatment of the snoring,
3 types of treatment for snoring or OSA are possible by 3 different specialists.
1)Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP)
2)Custom fitted dental devices and lower jaw-positioners
3)Surgical procedures
1)Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP):
CPAP treatment is given only if your spouse is
suffering from OSA. It is NOT given for simple snoring.
How does it work?
It is a machine which pumps the air into
the air passage with pressure. Thus, because of
continuous air pressure the structures like the
tongue is prevented from falling on the back of the
air passage. That way, your spouse’s air passage is
maintained during the entire night. He gets
good amount of oxygen and uninterrupted
sleep throughout the night. The machine
pumps the air through a tube into a mask which
he has to wear throughout the night.
Whom to consult?
A Pulmonologist is a specialist doctor trained to
evaluate whether your spouse need to use a
CPAP machine or not, which type of machine will
give the best result in his particular situation &,
how to best adjust it.
2)Custom fitted dental devices and lower jaw-positioners:
How do they work?
These devices move your spouse’s lower jaw in
more forward position. Our tongue is attached to
our lower jaws. Thus, when we move our lower jaw forward,
automatically our tongue also moves
forward. That way, you spouse’s tongue moves in
forward position away from the air passage. His
airway gets open and his snoring or OSA gets relieved.
Bonus advantage:
There is one more bonus advantage of
these devices- if your spouse is having habit of
grinding his teeth, these appliances also take
care of that. Along with the snoring, the
damage caused by the grinding of his teeth will
also be kept under control.
Whom to consult?
A dentist trained in sleep dentistry should be
consulted to get this custom-made appliance prepared.
How I treated my own snoring (& you can too) with this
unique, patented Australian device….
We- the doctors are also human beings. We can
and do suffer from the same health issues as
you can. I am also not an exception. Before one year,
my wife started complaining to me that I am
snoring very loudly during the night and
her sleep gets disturbed because of that. Immediately
I got one of the most common dental devices made for
myself. It started giving the result from
the very first night. My snoring stopped. It was
all well for around 6 weeks and then suddenly
I started having pain in one of my jaw joints. This is
one of the disadvantage of these
dental devices commonly prepared. While some of the
patients get accustomed to them, the other like me
starts getting pain in jaw joints. So, even if
it was working, I had to discontinue wearing it. I tried
another alternative design, but that also
started giving pain to my jaw joint. It was a challenge…..
I was in search of a dental device that would
cure my snoring without hurting my own jaw joint. & then,
co-incidentally at that time I got a phone call from
my friend- Dr. Pranav Dixit based in Australia. He is
working with a holistic dentist- Dr. Da Cruz at
Canberra. When Pranav told me about
Dr Da Cruz, I realized that he is the doctor who can
help me with my own snoring. I flied to Australia,
personally learned from Dr. Da Cruz about his unique,
patented Australian device. The device is known as SOMA.
SOMA has many unique benefits that other
anti-snoring devices are lacking. Just to mention a few:
- Anti snoring & preventing teeth grinding (which are same as other devices)
- Relief in the jaw joint problem. Yes! while
other devices ‘CAUSE’ the jaw joint problems,
SOMA actually ‘TREATS’ them!
- Calms your autonomic nervous system- it provides
relief from stress & anxiety
- Improves the balance of your skeleton system – thus
it helps to relieve neck pain, back pain, shoulder pain etc. which
are hard to relieve through pain medicine or physiotherapy
As such, there are many other advantages of SOMA. It can be
a topic for a separate blog on SOMA. Design of the
dental device and the level of comfort is very
important for the patient. Fortunately, as I am both
the doctor and the patient, I have gained
first hand experience of the treatment. I have found
SOMA to be helpful to me. And I sincerely believe that
it can be helpful to you as well. This investment can
change your life! Call us on 9825395427 to book your appointment.
3)Surgical procedures:
For obvious reasons, surgery is usually not the
first choice of the patients. But, we must understand that
there are specific situations when surgery may be the only option for you.
How does it work?
The snoring can be because of the obstruction in
the nose, excessively large adenoids in the throat, large
soft palate, large tongue etc. There are various types of
surgeries needed as per the location of the
obstruction responsible for the snoring.
Whom to consult?
An ENT surgeon can perform the surgery that can
help your spouse to treat the snoring
In severe cases, any one of these treatments may not
give desired result. In that case, you might need to
combine 2 or even all the 3 methods!
Wish you & your spouse a restful sleep…J
See you next Tuesday with another Tuesday Tip.
Till then…..
Take care….
Providing simple solutions for the complexities of life-
Dr. Rakesh Makwana
Your Holistic Dentist
