Effective Treatment for A Good Night’s Sleep, a Long-Sought Dream for Sleep Apnea Patients

For millions of American people with sleep apnea, getting a restful night’s sleep is an elusive dream. Patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) experience disordered breathing when sleeping, causing sleep disruption, snoring, and excessive fatigue the following day. Worse yet, the condition has been linked to heart disease, hypertension, stroke, and other conditions. 

Piney Creek Family Dentistry in Centennial, Colorado, understands sleep is as important as a healthy diet or exercise. Dr. Tiffany Fritz offers oral appliance therapy as an effective way to treat sleep apnea. This non-surgical treatment has remarkable success in addressing mild to moderate OSA. 

Sleep apnea: The robber of breath, sleep, and health

OSA occurs when the soft tissues in the throat relax while sleeping, partially or entirely blocking the airway for a scary 10-30 seconds. When the brain senses oxygen deprivation, it arouses your body to restore normal breathing. This awakening is brief, and you may not even notice. However, when you drift back to sleep, another apneic episode strikes before you reach the restorative sleep state. These repeated awakenings can recur up to a hundred times for patients with severe OSA!

The dangers of OSA go beyond sleep. Untreated sleep apnea may lead to:

• Hypertension
• Types 2 diabetes
• Stroke
• Cardiovascular disease
• Depression
• Poor concentration in the workplace or on the road can cause injuries or even death

Treating sleep apnea with a conservative solution

The objective of sleep apnea treatments is to restore healthy breathing to minimize or stop the undesirable symptoms. Treatment options like continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines are available to sleep apnea patients. Unfortunately, many patients don’t tolerate CPAP therapy well, citing discomfort and cumbersomeness as the reasons for low compliance. 

Patients who can’t put up with a CPAP device have yet another solution. Dr. Fritz offers a customized oral device as a conservative treatment for OSA. This device repositions the lower jaw and tongue to keep the airway open. A sleep apnea mouthpiece remarkably improves OSA symptoms by restoring healthy breathing.

Besides oral appliance therapy, our doctor may recommend quitting alcohol and smoking, changing your sleep position, exercising, and maintaining a healthy weight to control OSA to effectively manage OSA to restore your sleep and health. 

Effective sleep apnea treatment at a dentist’s office

Have you had enough of OSA in Centennial, CO? Call (303) 562-1051 to schedule an appointment with Piney Creek Family Dentistry for effective sleep apnea solutions.