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Sleep Apnea

Sleep Apnea (from Greek, meaning "without breath") is one of the most common sleep disorders in which breathing stops and then restarts again recurrently during slumber.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), occurs when the airway temporarily collapses during sleep, preventing or restricting breathing for up to ten seconds or more.

Sleep apnea usually is a chronic (ongoing) condition that disrupts your sleep 3 or more nights each week. You often move out of deep sleep and into light sleep when your breathing pauses or becomes shallow.

This results in poor sleep quality that makes you tired during the day. Sleep apnea is one of the leading causes of excessive daytime sleepiness.

We now have the ability for you to see if you suffer from sleep apnea by using a Home Sleep Test. This test is conducted at the home of the patient. This test is specifically designed to assist in the diagnosis of sleep disordered breathing, specifically Sleep Apnea. The test is convenient for the patient and many experts agree that testing the patients sleep in their normal home environment offers many advantages to the laboratory setting that is admittedly uncomfortable for the patient.

If the patient is diagnosed, an oral appliance is available in our office. An oral device is fitted by a dentist and worn much like a retainer or sport mouth-guard. They are designed to keep the mandible (jaw) and/or tongue in a forward position that allows the airway to remain open. Generally, oral devices work best for patients with mild to moderate OSA, patients who experience OSA mostly in the supine position (when sleeping on their backs), and for those who are not obese and do not have a large neck.