Get a Better Night's Sleep

Sleep apnea is a condition that's been investigated more recently. A lot of people have sleep apnea and don't realize it, and this happens when patients will have a compromised airway when they sleep or even stop breathing for a minute, a minute and a half at a time. This can lead them to vulnerabilities with heart disease and some other problems. So we kind of laugh about snoring, but snoring is actually a compromised airway. Everybody snores now and then but if you're doing it consistently, that would be something that would be good to talk to the dentist about.Not all dentists deal with sleep apnea. We do and it's very gratifying. These people typically will say, “I'm always tired. I never get enough rest. Yeah, I slept seven, eight hours, but it doesn't ever seem to be enough.” It's the quality of the sleep, not just the quantity and if these people stop breathing every couple of minutes for a minute, a minute and a half, the quality of their sleep is not good. They're gasping for air.Sleep apnea has several treatments. Some of them can be done at the dentist. Some frankly have to be done at the physician, some are even done with the surgeon. I often explain the dentist is a good place to start because if we can help them there tend to be more direct and more straightforward and those would involve things like a night guard, a mouth guard, or what's called different phrases and brands, a (inaudible), some way to support the airway.Some patients are on CPAP machines and they know all about those and they proved to be very uncomfortable. They want to investigate other options and dental has some options available. What I tell patients, the best way is to come in and let's talk about it. Let's see where you are, see what you've had. Many times we coordinate with the physicians and order a sleep study where they can see exactly how often they're sleep deprived, how long they quit breathing, and that'll give us an idea of the severity of their sleep problem.