Does your partner snore? Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night gasping for air? These are symptoms of sleep apnea, a sleep disorder which can range in severity. Severe cases can be potentially dangerous. But proper diagnosis and treatment from our Thousand Oaks dentist can help you get the air you need at night for a more functional, happy life during your waking hours. Contact our dental office today! It occurs when the soft tissues of your mouth and throat sag during sleep, blocking your airway and preventing you from breathing properly for several seconds.
This can happen hundreds of times per night. It can be treated with lifestyle changes, a CPAP machine, or oral appliance therapy. In this type of apnea, breathing interruptions are not caused by sagging tissues. Instead, breathing is interrupted because your brain is not sending the proper signals to your lungs to make them breathe.
It can be difficult to diagnose, but can usually be treated with a CPAP continuous positive airway pressure machine. The most common cause of sleep apnea is the obstruction of your airway by your oral tissue during sleep. Contributing factors to OSA include being overweight, use of alcohol and sedatives, smoking tobacco, nasal congestion, and genetic factors like a narrow mouth or throat. It can be caused due to medical conditions like Cheyne-Stokes respiration, by damage to the brain stem, which controls breathing, or by the use of certain types of narcotic painkillers.
The most common symptom of sleep apnea is deep, prolonged snoring, which is accompanied by periodic interruptions in breathing during sleep. The patient will then gasp for air upon the resumption of breathing. Some patients might wake up from this.
If you recognize one or more of these symptoms in yourself or your sleeping partner, you can see a sleep specialist for a diagnosis. CPAP continuous positive airway pressure machines are commonly used to treat sleep apnea. This machine uses a face and nose mask to deliver a stream of gently pressurized air into the airway. In obstructive sleep apnea, this prevents the soft tissues of your airway from sagging, and also delivers air into the lungs for Thousand Oaks patients who have central sleep apnea.
