Snoring and Obstructive Sleep Apnea

People are already inundated with information regarding snoring from TV commercials to internet medical websites. The purpose of this article is to provide information in hopefully a different and more common sense way approach so that one understands where snoring is coming from and what can be done about it.

Snoring is a noise (obviously!) produced by a person while they sleep. What you may not realize is that the noise production is actually an orchestra of sounds from different regions of a person's airway from the tip of the nose to the windpipe.

SO, for one given snoozing person, their particular snore may be the result of:

10% deviated septum
20% back of nose vibrating
10% sides of throat vibrating
20% uvula and palate vibrating
40% tongue vibrating
100% TOTAL

Whereas another person's snore may be the result of:

80% deviated septum
5% cheeks vibrating
5% lips vibrating
10% uvula and palate vibrating
100% TOTAL

For this last individual where 80% of the snore is due to the deviated septum, over the counter solutions such as breathe-rite strips may help, but definitely would do little to improve the first person's snoring which is mostly due to tongue vibration. Because of this variability in anatomic sources of snoring, treatment is not easy or straightfoward. Many of the surgical procedures performed attempt to alleviate snoring by either removing the problem (ie, UPPP removes the uvula & trims the soft palate; septoplasty corrects the deviated septum) or scarring the tissues so they won't vibrate as easily (somnoplasty or pillar procedure). However, even with these maneuvers, snoring may not completely go away as snoring is due to many different levels of the airway. That said, for most people, most of the snoring originates from the soft palate/uvula and base of tongue.

Snoring may be due to obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) where one's own throat tissues collapse to the point where air movement is very nearly or completely obstructed (ie, your own body is choking you). OSA is a serious medical condition as it not only prevents you from having a good night's rest and ability to stay awake during the daytime, but it also increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, hypertension, etc. In order to determine whether you have OSA or not, a sleep study is required (video of sleep study below).

In adults, the treatment for OSA is geared towards keeping the airway open by forcing air into you (ie, CPAP or BiPAP machines) or making the airway larger preventing collapse via surgery (septoplasty, turbinate reduction, UPPP, base of tongue reduction, hyoid advancement, mandibular-maxillar advancement, tracheostomy, etc) or bite block (which forces your tongue and jaw forward preventing collapse). Losing weight is also very helpful as fat deposits occur in the throat which does narrow and increase the risk of collapse.

In children, however, the treatment for OSA is always removal of the tonsils & adenoids first (standard of care).

If snoring and/or obstructive sleep apnea is affecting your quality of life, please contact our office for an appointment.