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7 Simple Ways To Get Rid of Your Snoring For Good

If your spouse or bed-partner snores and keeps you up at night, then you're not alone. Most people snore at least occasionally, while about 25% snore all the time. Snoring is a major problem that not only can affect your relationship, but your health as well (snorer and snoree).

Snoring may be a sign that you have obstructive sleep apnea, a condition where you literally stop breathing repeatedly while sleeping. Untreated obstructive sleep apnea can cause or aggravate depression, anxiety, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, and stroke.

Even if you don't have sleep apnea officially, studies have shown that snorers have a much higher risk for relationship problems, car accidents, and cognitive impairment.

One important thing to note is that you don't have to snore to have sleep apnea. Even young, thin women who don't snore can have significant sleep apnea.

Here's a checklist of the 7 “musts” of snoring cessation. Try these simple strategies before you resort to more invasive and expensive options:

1. Don't eat within 3-4 hours of bedtime.
If you snore, chances are, you'll stop breathing once in a while. When you do stop breathing, you'll create a vacuum effect in your throat which suctions up your normal stomach juices into your throat, causing you to wake up partially or fully. This also causes more swelling and inflammation which narrows your throat and nose even further. This leads to less efficient sleep, leading to weight gain, which narrows your throat even further.

2. Don't drink alcohol within 3-4 hours of bedtime.
Alcohol is a strong muscle relaxant, so it will make your throat muscles more slack and more apt to collapse and obstruct. And any obstruction around your airway as you sleep means more snoring.

3. Don't sleep on your back.
Due to gravity, everyone's tongues can fall back when on our backs. This narrows the space behind the tongue and along with muscle relaxation during deep sleep, you'll snore more and stop breathing more often. The traditional recommendation for pinning a tennis ball to the back of your pajama shirt ma work for a few people, but there are a lot more sophisticated ways to keep you off your back.

4. Clear up your nose.
Make sure that you're able to breathe properly through your nose, since having a stuffy nose will create a slight vacuum effect in your throat, aggravating partial to total collapse of the soft palate and the tongue. Whether through over-the-counter remedies, prescription medications, or with surgery, get this taken care of first. Unfortunately, this works only sometimes and in many cases, nothing changes. Regardless, if you need further treatment, you need to be able to breathe through your nose for the other options to work. It's been shown that definitively optimizing nasal breathing through surgery cures obstructive sleep apnea in only 10% of cases.

An interesting study published about 10 years ago showed that when given a nasal decongestant as well as a medicine that helps to empty the stomach faster, about 80% of snoring was significantly improved.

5. Lose weight.
Needless to say, this is easier said than done. One of the reasons why you may be overweight is because you don't sleep well. Less efficient sleep promotes weight gain, which not only cause you to expand on the outside, but also narrow in on the inside of your upper airways. But how about some of you who are not overweight, or even very skinny? Snoring and sleep-breathing problems occur due to a structural narrowing of the entire upper airway, from the tip of your nose to your voice box.

6. Try any of the various over-the-counter anti-snore gadgets, devices, and pills.
But don't expect dramatic results. Yes, sometimes, it'll help with your snoring, but even if it works, the effects don't usually last. The reason why you snore is due to your jaw anatomy and additional inflammation. Covering it up with any of these options is only a temporary solution. A study showed that compared with controls, the throat spray, nasal dilator strips, and anti-snore pillow was not any better.

7. Seek medical help.
If all the above don't work, it's time to see an ear, nose and throat doctor. A comprehensive exam is needed to find out which areas of your upper airway (from the tip of the nose to the voice box). We know that for most people it's the soft palate that flutters, making the annoying, chainsaw sounds. Usually, snorers will have a combination of areas that contribute to snoring, with the tongue being the most common culprit, due to having small jaws.

In most cases, a sleep study is needed to check to see if you have obstructive sleep apnea. If you do have sleep apnea, then treating this condition will help your snoring. Even if you don't have obstructive sleep apnea, all the different treatment options for sleep apnea can be used. As I mentioned in Step #4, you must first optimize nasal breathing and then deal with your tongue. The timing for eating and drinking alcohol is something that you should continue for a lifetime.

Unfortunately, things only tend to get worse as you age. The soft tissues in your throat tend to sag and collapse, especially after decades of repeated strong inspiration. This is why it's important to get your snoring taken care of, first using the conservative steps outlined in his article, and later by seeing a physician that can help you with this condition.
 

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The 5 Dangers of Benign Snoring

Snoring is so common these days that it’s synonymous with sleep. In the movies or on TV, a sleeping person is depicted with snoring sounds. Even in the comics, the ZZZZZZZZs that you see coming from the sleeper may signify snoring.

 

Within the sleep community, we often use the term benign snoring to mean snoring without any sleep apnea. We see it as the least important form of obstructed breathing, without any medical consequences. Every time I see this in our medical journals or in the media, I get mildly annoyed, since there’s so much information to show that snoring is never benign.

 

Snoring itself is usually caused by vibrations from the soft palate. Think of a reed in a wind instrument, or a flag flapping in strong winds making lots of noise. In the human throat, any degree of abnormal narrowing of the throat promotes vibrations of the free edge of the soft palate. The loudest recorded snore was found in a British woman whose sound levels reached 113 dB, which is louder than a low-flying jet. There are other areas in the throat that vibrate and make sounds, but they’re probably a secondary effect of the soft palate vibrations.

 

Here are 5 reasons why snoring is never benign:

 

1. If you snore, you have a 35% chance of having obstructive sleep apnea, which is a potentially serious medical condition where you stop breathing multiple times every hour, leading to oxygen deprivation, heart disease, heart attack, and stroke. The best way to diagnose sleep apnea is to undergo a formal overnight sleep study. If you stop breathing at least 5 times every hour, with each episode lasting 10 seconds or longer, then you’re told you have sleep apnea. But what if you stop breathing 15 times every hour, but you wake up after 1-5 seconds for each episode? Then you’re told you don’t have sleep apnea, with no clear explanation why you’re so tired all the time.

 

2. It’s been shown experimentally in rabbits that artificially applying vibrations to the carotid artery causes thickening of the carotid artery walls, similar to what we see in humans with plaques.

 

3. Snoring without sleep apnea has been shown to increase your chances of being involved in a car accident.

 

4. Not only is snoring potentially dangerous for your own health, it also disrupts your bed-partner’s sleep quality, health, and relationships. There have been reports of bed-partners becoming deaf in one ear.

 

5. By not taking snoring seriously, it’s likely that you’ll delay diagnosing obstructive sleep apnea. Many people try various over-the-counter anti-snore aids with mixed results. Most end up giving up until the problem gets worse.

 

If you or your loved one snores, take it seriously and get it checked out by a sleep physician or an ear, nose and throat doctor. Even if you’re found not to have sleep apnea, treat the snoring. Just because the sleep study doesn’t say you have sleep apnea doesn’t mean that you don’t have a sleep-breathing problem.

The ABCs of Oral Appliance Therapy

How to Treat Sleep Apnea with Oral Appliances, Revealed

Dr. Park Interviews Dr. David Lawler, a dentist with extensive knowledge and expertise in treating sleep apnea using oral appliances. During this 60 minute call, Dr. Lawler explains in detail what oral appliance therapy is and how it can be used to treat sleep disorders. Find out:

• Why customized dental devices are good alternatives to CPAP in treating obstructive sleep apnea
• How oral appliances can help you stop snoring
• The major mistakes people make when getting dental devices for their sleep apnea and what you can do to avoid them
• How to lessen the discomfort of using any dental device
• Tips on finding the right dentist in your area to fit you with these devices

Buy your copy of this audio recording today, available in two easy-to-access formats:

  

Can Bottle Feeding Increase the Risk of Sleep Apnea?

Startling News For Infant Care and Feeding…

Dr. Park interviews Dr. Brian Palmer, a former dentist who has done extensive research in the field of infant oral cavity and airway development.  During this 60 minute teleseminar, Dr. Palmer shares shocking information regarding infant bottle feeding and why parents who were bottle fed or have young children who have should be concerned.

Learn:

 Why children who were bottle fed are more likely to have a sleep breathing problem than those who were nursed.

• How bottle feeding can directly or indirectly affect your child’s school performance later on in life
• Why bottle fed children are more at risk for sleep apnea,obesity, ADHD, bed wetting and more
• What you can do NOW to prevent health problems for your children later on in life

Register below to download and listen to this FREE recording.

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Snoreplasty Procedure Rediscovered to Cure Snoring

It seems like snoring and sleep apnea treatments are rediscovered and proclaimed by the media as a new "cure," when in fact, it’s been described years before. A British doctor reports that by injecting a scarring agent into the soft palate, snoring is eliminated. The material he used was sodium tetradecyl sulfate, which is the same material that’s been used for varicose veins for 50 years.

This procedure was originally described by Dr. Eric Mair in 2001. He reported a 92% initial success rate, which dropped to 75% at 19 months on average. Most people will need 2 to 3 injections for optimal results. I performed this procedure quite a lot with good results until other, more sophisticated options became available.

It literally takes less than 5 minutes to perform in the office. Topical anesthesia is used in the mouth and a very tiny needle is used to create a bleb underneath the mucous membrane of the central soft palate. After a few weeks of healing, scarring and tightening occurs, which stiffens the palate, lessening snoring vibrations. It can take a few weeks and up to 2-3 months before results are seen. Repeat injections are given as necessary.

There will be some mild throat discomfort, but most people don’t need to take any pain medications. However, a prescription pain medication is usually given.

One important point to remember is that all this does is to stiffen the soft palate. It’s not designed to treat any underlying obstructive sleep apnea. Typically, it’s much less expensive than the more high-tech, sophisticated procedures such as Pillar implants or laser procedures. Because snoring treatments are considered "cosmetic," they’re usually not covered by insurance carriers. 

It seems like medicine has a way of forgetting about simpler, more cost effective methods of treatment.

 

Have you undergone any in-office snoring treatments? If so, how long did it last? Please enter your response below in the comments box.

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2008 Doctor Steven Y. Park, MD | New York, NY | Integrative Solutions for Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome, and Snoring · Design by Fervent