A Small Dental Appliance May Be The Answer You Have Been Waiting For!
What can a small, professionally custom fitted dental sleep mouthpiece do for you?
- Ensure a good night's sleep for your bed partner and ensure that you spend the night in the same room.
- Help prevent heart disease, sudden cardiac death, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, depression, memory loss and even erectile dysfunction.
- Help prevent driving and work-related accidents caused by the excessive daytime sleepiness related to sleep apnea.
- Provide an alternative for the 25-75% of people with sleep apnea who cannot tolerate or would rather not use a CPAP device.
Oral appliances are placed in the mouth and are worn much like an orthodontic appliance. They are worn during sleep to prevent the collapse of the tongue and soft tissues in the back of the throat so that the airway stays open during sleep. The appliances promote adequate air intake and help to provide normal sleep in people who snore and have sleep apnea.
Oral appliances can be used alone or in conjunction with other means of therapy such as positional therapy or CPAP therapy (ex--to lower the needed pressure of the device).
The Practice Parameters published by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine in 2006 include oral appliances as a first line of therapy in the standard of care for the teratment of obstructive sleep apnea. According to the guidelines, oral appliances (OA) are indicated:
For patients with mild to moderate OSA who prefer OAs to Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP), and in all cases for those who do not respond to CPAP, are not appropriate candidates for CPAP, or who fail treatment attempts with CPAP or treatment with behavioral measures such as weight loss or sleep position change.
This means that oral appliance therapy is indicated for mild to moderate OSA patients if they prefer it to CPAP, the standard treatment therapy, cannot tolerate CPAP, or are unable to use positional therapy or weight loss to control their apnea. Oral appliances are also recommended for severe OSA patients if they connot tolerate CPAP. Patients with severe OSA should always try CPAP before considering oral appliance therapy. Oral appliances are also NOT indicated for central or mixed sleep apnea.