Snoring Treatment

Springfield, Holyoke, Longmeadow, and Wilbraham, MA

Sleep Apnea

Do you have a habit of snoring? Do you find yourself feeling droopy during the work day, or inattentive and forgetful? These are symptoms of sleep apnea, and most people who have sleep apnea do not know they have it.

When it is left untreated for a long period, it can seriously threaten your health. That is because you are being deprived of adequate sleep and your blood has insufficient oxygen as well as a build-up of waste products.

Believe it or not, sleep apnea is increasingly being treated by dentists. At Baystate Dental, we have dentists who are fully trained and experienced to help you improve your quality of life through sleep apnea diagnosis and treatment.

What is Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea is a disorder that causes you to stop breathing during sleep because your airway is blocked. You may do that hundreds of times a night and each time you may stop breathing for a minute or longer. This is a common condition that affects more than 12 million Americans, yet it is relatively unknown to the public.

There are three types of sleep apnea:

• Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA): when your airway become blocked due to soft tissue collapsing against it. This is far the most common type.
• Central sleep apnea: when your brain fails to send the “breathing” signals to your muscles;
• Mixed sleep apnea: when you suffer from a combination of obstructive and central sleep apnea.

Symptoms of Sleep Apnea

Because you are waking perhaps hundreds of times every night from lack of air, you will notice daytime symptoms such as:

• Headaches
• Fatigue
• Trouble with focusing
• Dry mouth
• Sore throat
• Irritability
• Poor job performance
• Poor memory
• Depression

Diagnosis and Treatment of Sleep Apnea

Traditionally, sleep apnea is diagnosed in a sleep center, where you spend the night being monitored. However, at Baystate Dental we can provide you with an at-home sleep apnea diagnosis device — the Watch-PAT200, which lets you avoid going to a sleep clinic. This FDA-cleared device is worn on the wrist with a non-invasive finger-mounted probe to measure your Peripheral Arterial Tone (PAT). The information thus recorded can help to diagnose sleep apnea.

Once you have been diagnosed, we can make you a custom oral appliance to keep your airway open. They work either by holding the tongue slightly forward or by holding the jaw slightly forward.

We offer two excellent devices called:

• SomnoMed: SomnoDent© MAS therapy; and
• Silent Nite©: snoring prevention device.

When we fit your with one of these appliances, you will have some follow-up visits for us to monitor how well they are working for you. Regular check-ups with your dentist will help to ensure that your sleep apnea is under control.

For more information, please visit our Questions About Sleep Apnea page.

If you have sleep apnea, you are at increased risk for heart disease, car accidents, high blood pressure, sexual dysfunction, and a host of other health problems. The sooner you have it diagnosed and treated, the better your life will be.

Please contact our dentists today for a sleep apnea consultation. Baystate Dental in Massachusetts has many locations in Springfield, Longmeadow or Wilbraham and we hope to meet with you soon.