Sleep Apnea in Scarborough
Sleep apnea is a potentially serious sleep disorder in which you can repeatedly stop breathing and restart. Your airway constricts as you sleep, which prevents you from breathing correctly. Sleep apnea can affect anyone, although age and obesity do play a role. If you snore loudly and feel tired even after a full night's sleep, or you wake up with a frequent headache, you might have sleep apnea. Consult our Scarborough dentist for help.
Signs of Sleep Apnea
The most common type of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which occurs when your throat muscles relax and the airway narrows or closes as you breathe in. This condition causes you to get less oxygen than you need for your brain to function well. The brain realizes this and wakes you up briefly to breathe, which results in light and disturbed sleep.
Some people wake up this way every minute or more during the night. If you’re one of them, it means you get very little restful sleep even if you don’t realize you’re waking up. The constant tiredness makes you susceptible to concentration difficulties, depression, weight gain, hypertension, heart problems, and other medical problems.
Causes of Sleep Apnea in Scarborough Patients
Sleep apnea can affect anyone, even children, but some things that increase your risk of developing the condition include:
- Being overweight, because the fat deposits around your neck and upper airway can help to block your breathing.
- Your neck thickness, because the thicker your neck the narrower your airway might be.
- A narrow airway, which can be inherited or caused by enlarged tonsils or adenoids that block it.
- Gender, because men are two to three times more likely to get it than women.
- Age, because sleep apnea happens more often in older adults.
- Family history, because the condition is believed to be hereditary.
- Using alcohol, sedatives or tranquilizers, which relax the muscles in your throat and make it worse.
- Smoking, which increases the inflammation and fluid retention in your upper airway.
- Nasal congestion caused by a deviated septum or allergies.
Treating Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea affects many people in Scarborough and more than a million Canadians, but many aren’t aware that they have this condition. Usually your sleeping partner is first to notice loud snoring or gasps of air that repeat themselves constantly. To help patients get more oxygen, sleep disorder specialists usually prescribe a CPAP machine. This is a continuous positive air pressure machine with a mask you wear while you sleep to increase airflow into your nose and mouth. Many people aren’t able to get used to sleeping with a CPAP machine, however, and end up looking for help in other places.
Complications of Sleep Apnea
The risk of long-term complications greatly increases if you don’t get effective treatment for sleep apnea in Scarborough.
Sleep apnea can lead to sleep deprivation, which can then cause hormone imbalance and overeating. Without regular sleep, you may eat more and become overweight. Apnea is also associated with diabetes. People who suffer and fail to get treatment are at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Heart disease, cardiac arrest, and stroke risks are all increased when suffering from sleep apnea. Daytime fatigue, high blood pressure, and insomnia are some early complications that you might already be experiencing.
The best way to minimize risk is to seek effective treatment for sleep apnea in Scarborough. Havenview Dental can offer custom-formed dental appliances to help you breathe clearly and improve your sleep quality.
If you want to live a long, healthy, and disease-free life, you should contact us for the best treatment for sleep apnea Scarborough has to offer today.
How We Can Help
Our dentists in Scarborough can help by first determining you don’t have any other issues that could cause your sleep apnea. After that, they can make many people appliances such as mouth guards that open up the airway by positioning the chin correctly. This option can help you avoid having to use a CPAP machine, or you could use the mouthguard together with the CPAP to enhance its effect.
To take our Sleep Screening Questionnaire, click here and then forward it to us for review at dentistry@havenviewdental.com, (New link on Havenview website) or, to talk to our dentist about sleep apnea in Scarborough, call us at 416-291-3117 to book an appointment.
Sleep apnea mouthpieces are custom-made dental appliances that help to prevent apnea from occurring during the night. They move the jaw forward and are also known as JAD – Jaw Advancing Devices or MAD – Mandibula Advancement Devices. They work by improving airflow as the size of the upper airway is increased.
If apnea is caused by the tongue interfering with breathing, an appliance can be custom-made to keep the tongue in place to support breathing and a clear airway.
Sleep apnea treatment Scarborough is an affordable and efficient way to treat the condition and can remove the need to use a large, sometimes noisy, and inconvenient CPAP machine.
CPAP treatment (the use of a device and mask that continuously maintains air passage) is the most popular form of sleep apnea treatment Scarborough. However, this is changing. Countless patients are realizing that treatment with an oral device can be just as effective and far more affordable in the long term.
Sleep apnea treatment Scarborough with a dental appliance is ideal if you or someone in your family suffers from mild or moderate sleep apnea. If apnea is linked to being overweight, a dental appliance can provide relief and management for sleep apnea, which will complement a fitness and weight-loss program.
Dr. Lee and Dr. Eng may recommend that you take part in a sleep study under the supervision of your physician before having sleep apnea treatment Scarborough. By fully understanding your condition, you’ll be able to make an informed decision on the best treatment for you.
While sleep apnea can sound a lot like snoring, the condition is much more serious. Apnea refers to the pauses in breathing that occur in people suffering from this condition.
Snoring is caused when the throat relaxes, and tissues vibrate during breathing. There is no pause in breathing and people who snore in the general sense won’t usually suffer from any serious health complications.
People with obstructive sleep apnea will stop breathing several times during sleep, causing them to gasp for air as oxygen levels deplete. This results in poor rest and is linked to a range of conditions from chronic fatigue to heart disease and diabetes.
Dental appliances can be used for both snoring and sleep apnea treatment Scarborough. If you or someone you care about is loudly snoring or gasping for air in the night, it’s time to talk to the dental professionals at Havenview Dental Centre.
Although it’s rarer for children to suffer from sleep apnea, they can still have sleep apnea treatment Scarborough. Because our devices are custom-made to fit the unique oral structure of any patient, your child can wear a perfectly formed mouthguard.
If your child is suffering from sleep apnea or snoring, talk to Dr. Lee and Dr. Eng at Havenview Dental Centre.
Insurance often covers sleep apnea treatment Scarborough, often through a health plan rather than a specific dental plan. The coverage you can get will depend on your policy and the treatment may need to be authorized by your physician.
If you don’t have insurance or if your policy doesn’t cover sleep apnea appliances, we can offer credit, cash, and cheque payment processing as well as payment plans. Having sleep apnea treatment Scarborough can be life-changing. Havenview Dental Centre is here to provide the most effective treatment for mild and moderate sleep apnea.