Snoring

Snoring can range from being a nuisance to being life threatening. To evaluate your snoring problem, we will want to know:

• How long have you been snoring
• Has anyone ever told you, you stop breathing in your sleep
• Do you snore every night
• Is your snoring made worse when you have an allergy flare
• Do you breath out of your nose easily
• Do you have daytime sleepiness, morning headache, or a hard time waking up in the morning

An examination with careful attention to the nasal anatomy and throat will be carried out. Sometimes, a fiberoptic scope will be used to look at the back of your throat. If apnea is a major part of your sleep, we may need to do a sleep study (if you haven’t had one yet).

There are many causes to snoring, a major one being obesity. Another major factor is nasal obstruction. Not being able to breath through your nose at night makes you breath through your mouth, causing you to snore worse. Treatment of snoring depends on how severe it is. The best treatment for severe snoring for apnea is CPAP. In order to tolerate CPAP, sometimes clearing a nasal obstruction or nasal septal deviation is required. If you have only snoring, then clearing a nasal obstruction and/or palate implants can greatly reduce or even eliminate the snoring.