Are you aware that there are links to sleep apnea and your dental status? Sleep apnea shows no discrimination between male or female, attacking both genders and youngsters alike. When your significant other struggles every night with your snoring or grinding of teeth, and sleeplessness you need to make an appointment with your dentist. You need to find out if your oral health could be to blame for your obstructive sleep apnea. Often your dentist is the first professional to diagnose you with sleep apnea, a serious condition.
Dental Signs Pointing to Sleep Apnea
Listen to your significant other when they say you are snoring too loudly. Listen and seriously consider making a dental appointment if your partner complains that you grind your teeth during the night. The dentist immediately notices worn surfaces of your teeth. This grinding problem causes tooth wear and tear, gums to recede, and inflammation of the gums. The dentist may also see an increase in cavities due to the extra pressure and wear on teeth. Your dental professional has a few different interventions such as a mouth guard to help you eliminate or decrease sleep apnea problems.
Can My Dentist treat Sleep Apnea?
A dentist can diagnose and treat sleep apnea. A dentist can prescribe a mouth guard that you wear only during sleep. This mouth guard helps to maintain your airway. Your dentist can also prescribe C-Pap or Bi-Pap and recommend a sleep study to monitor your apnea episodes by using any type of sleep apnea solutions overland park ks. A machine at night monitors and charts your apnea episodes so that adjustments with your machine can be made to assure increased improvement with sleep. This procedure opens up the airway. Another remedy is weight loss is you are over your ideal body weight. As a very last resort you can have a surgeon remove excess soft tissue in the throat.
Never Risk a Heart Attack or Stroke
Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea puts you at a high risk for a stroke or heart attack. Sleep apnea decreases your oxygen intake due to repeated breathing interruptions when sleeping. Decreased oxygen on a nightly basis eventually affects vital organs, especially your heart. These episodic breathing interruptions are similar to holding your breath. These episodes can last a few seconds up to a few minutes. If you have obstructive sleep apnea, you may experience over 30 episodes of not breathing every hour, every night and, likely, you are not even aware of the problem. Your best clue is an ongoing tired feeling every day. Your best source for information is your significant other. During the night you may breathe with your mouth open. Your apnea may be caused by lazy muscles in your throat, your tongue may be extra-large closing off your airway, or your jaw may be too small. All of these issues cause you to stop breathing.