Snoring Problems

Snoring Questionnaire  ::  Snoring Treatment

Why do People Snore?

Snoring is a mild breathing disorder and is the sound of air being forced by a blockage in your nose or throat.

Normally, air passes from your airways to your lungs silently and unhindered. For others however, something disrupts the flow of air. Typically, the narrower the airway the louder or more habitual the snoring. 

Snoring is often no greater problem than the noise itself. However, loud and disruptive snoring may be a sign of a more serious problem.

Maybe it’s a blocked nose or deviated septum; perhaps the base of your tongue or enlarged tonsils is restricting your breathing. 

When you fall asleep your muscles relax, including those that control the tongue and throat. The soft tissue at the back of your throat can sag, narrowing the airway. Incoming air then makes the tissue at the rear roof of the mouth (the soft palate), the flap of skin hanging from the palate (uvula) and the throat vibrate – a sound we know as snoring.

When you are a child, you typically have good muscle tone and do not snore, but as you get older, you put on weight and your throat tissues get flabbier.

Alcohol and overeating before bedtime make the problem worse. 

Why Snoring Problems are Important?

Typically Snoring effect people in three core ways:

• Disturbed sleep
• Sleeping in different rooms
• Daytime tiredness

An estimated 45% of the population snores at least occasionally, but snoring can cause great distress for the bed partners of snorers, this can lead to partners sleeping separately  This is not a recipe for a good marriage or relationship.

Snoring is often a symptom can also be a symptom of Sleep Apnea (Apnea), a sleep disorder that is potentially life-threatening.

Any snoring is a sign that your breathing is disrupted. Your body is having to work harder than it should to breathe.  As you get older, and put on weight and lose muscle tone, your snoring can lead to periods of not breathing at night.  That’s sleep apnea. 

What Can be Done?

There is no universal answer, but there are hundreds of potential solutions that may help you.  Start by taking our snoring questionnaire, we can then assess what remedies most likely to match your particular snoring type. 

Click here for snoring treatments to learn more about what therapy our practice typically recommends for common snoring challenges.

Other Remedies

Mouth breathing correction - Many people would snore less if they would just learn to breathe through their nose. 

• Mouthpiece devices - Devices are available — some custom-fitted by your dentist — which pull your lower jaw or tongue forward, thereby creating enough space in the throat to prevent breathing obstruction
• CPAP (Continuous Positive Airways Pressure) Machinery which blows air through your nose via a mask, preventing disruption of breathing and eliminating snoring
• Palatal implants: Pillar® Procedure  - Pillar implants, together with your body’s natural response, stiffen and add structural support to the soft palate, reducing the vibrations that cause snoring sounds
• Palate stiffening by scarring - You can achieve palate stiffening and reduce noisy vibrations by injecting a scarring solution (injection snoreplasty) or surgically by creating scarring with laser or scalpel
• Radiofrequency Tissue Reduction (RFTR) consists of piercing the tongue, throat or soft palate with a needle connected to a radio frequency generator. Inner tissues shrink, but outer tissues, which contain your taste buds, are left intact
• Various surgical procedures with names like uvulopalatoplasty are available which remove or shrink palate and throat tissue, making it easier for you to breathe

Self Help

• Lifestyle changes – All the usual vices worsen snoring: alcohol, smoking, overeating, under exercising,  caffeine. What did you expect?!
• Sleep posture correction - Many of us snore especially loudly when we sleep on our back.  Various pillows and strap-on devices are available to get you unsupine
• Throat sprays - These coat the soft tissues of the throat with lubricating oils, allowing the air to move more freely and lessening the noisy vibration
• Nasal dilation - These include adhesive strips which hold open the airways of your nose, plastic devices to hold open your nostrils, and nasal sprays which reduce congestion or the swelling of nasal tissues

What Snoring Could Mean?

Where snoring is the sound of the collapsed tissues vibrating. It also could be a sign of a more serious condition Sleep Apnea. Obstructive Sleep Apnea is when your airway is completely blocked or obstructed. See SLEEP APNEA

For answers to your questions call us for a professional assessment.