Treating obstructive sleep apnea and snoring is something that I got really passionate about starting back in 2017. I went out to Vivos Therapeutics out in Denver, Colorado, spent a lot of time training out there. I’ve also worked with with multiple other companies and multiple other trainers.
There’s a lot of amazing options out there for people that suffer from obstructive sleep apnea and snoring. With sleep apnea, there’s there’s a range and so a mild diagnosis is anywhere from 5 to 14 of an AHI, which is an apnea hypopnea index. If you’re 15 to 30, that’s moderate and then 30 and above is severe.
When someone has severe obstructive sleep apnea, the gold standard for that treatment is a CPAP machine. And a CPAP does a very good job and works very well. The problem with a CPAP is that you’re only looking at about a 40 percent compliance rate.
If you can’t wear a CPAP, a mandibular advancement device is a great option. And so think of that as a night guard. It’s like a night guard for the top teeth and a night guard for the bottom teeth.
And when you close down, it advances the lower jaw forward, which advances the tongue forward, which opens up the airway. Oral sleep appliances or mandibular advancement devices have been proven in research to be just as successful in treating obstructive sleep apnea as as a CPAP for mild to moderate cases. It’s it’s a simple process.
It does require there is a process that goes that’s involved with it. And when I say titrating the appliance to make sure that it’s working well for you, sometimes we have to advance the jaw out a little further. Sometimes we have to bring it back.
A lot of that has to do with with joint discomfort. Again, this is something that’s measurable. We start with a sleep study to begin with.
So we know where you are. We are able to get the diagnosis from a board certified sleep physician at 90 days after we make the appliance and after 90 days of getting used to it, do another test. And that’s called an efficacy test.
And we want to we really want to measure exactly where we are with your treatment. One other thing that is very unique to this office that we’re able to utilize either in conjunction with oral oral appliance therapy or standalone is utilizing utilizing the Fotona Lightwalker laser for the nightly’s procedure. Those are the two treatment options that we do here.
I’m the first person to tell you that if you’re severe, go with a CPAP machine. If you’re mild to moderate, oral appliance therapy is fantastic. And the same is true for the nightly’s.
The nightly’s is a is a very simple procedure. It’s a procedure that we do three treatments. We’re doing 21 days apart.
And there’s there’s no needles. There’s no shots. There’s no anesthetic.
It’s not a it’s not a difficult surgery. It’s very I’ve had it done to me when I was in training. It’s not bad at all.
And it’s like I said, there’s no shots. There’s no injections. And it’s it’s had some really, really good research and it’s proven to be very effective.
