Help To Stop Snoring

Stop Snoring Dental Appliance

Stop Snoring Aids to Suggest

There are a couple of things someone can do if he wants snoring to stop. However, you would have to understand it clearly that there are two things that have to be considered as reasons why people snore. One of these is the instance when the tongue relaxes and falls back on the uvula in the throat’s end obstructing the person’s air passages while he or she sleeps. The other one is when the nasal airways are blocked.

Although surgery is already an option for those who want to cure their snoring habits, however, the “cure rate” is under fifty percent today. Aside from the fact that a surgery can be expensive, it is indeed considered cosmetic and elective that is why a lot of health plans would pay little or none at all for the cost.

Since there are not really any product available yet on the market that will entirely cure snoring, there are plenty of stop snoring aids and devices that just might provide a snorer with relief and perhaps also allow the snorer and his or her family to get a good night’s sleep.

The following is a list of stop snoring aids and devices you can choose from:

1. CPAP or Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Appliances – a special mask used when sleeping that will keep a person’s throat from collapsing. Most physicians would recommend this method when you treat obstructive sleep apnea.

2. Adjustable Beds – this actually aids the snorer and his partner at night to have better sleep. If you sleep on a 30-degree elevation then it actually relieves any pressure that could be in the diaphragm, hence the airway is kept open. And also by elevating your head, your tongue will not likely collapse against the uvula.

3. Dental Appliances – there are tongue retaining flanges and devices that are safe and effective at impeding the person’s ability to swallow as he or she sleeps. Beware though for people who have obstructive sleep apnea must not use these kinds of stop snoring aids since it could obstruct the small upper air passages. The third type of dental appliance is the mandibular advancement appliances.

4. Stop Snoring Pillows – these pillows are constructed with the purpose of being able to reduce snoring in mind. These are made out of foam and are specially designed so that a snorer would opt to sleep on his or her side.

5. Nasal Valve Dilators – the following stop snoring aids are meant for the snorers due to their clogged nasal passages. These may come in the form of adhesive strips worn while sleeping over the nose bridge. These could also come in flexible pieces of plastic.

6. Stop Snoring Sprays – these are meant to be used by people who have swollen and blocked nasal passages or those with increased mucous. If a person suffers from all these conditions, nasal spray can offer a temporary relief.

Dentists… what is the cheaper and/or more durable option?

I have a front tooth that is a crown. I guess there wasn’t a whole lot of natural tooth structure left to glue it to, but it was doing OK until I started having to wear a TAP appliance at night to stop my snoring. The torque of the appliance keeps working my crown loose, and I keep having to get it re-cemented about every 6 months… Anyway, the crown is loose again, so I decided to stop wearing the appliance altogether, and just sleep in separate rooms

The TAP appliance needs to be adjusted to eliminate the excessive pressure placed on this crown. The continued crown removal and leaking while it’s becoming loose, is allowing bacteria to enter under the crown, exposing the nerve of this tooth to this bacteria. This will eventually cause this tooth to die. Then you will have two options, root canal therapy or extraction. The appliance should not be causing a crown to come off, if it’s seated to a sound clean tooth structure with proper cementation techniques being used.

If you need to have it removed a dental implant would be your best option, then a three unit bridge if the implant isn’t an option for you. But keep in mind that either of these will not withstand pressure from the appliance that your tooth is being subjected to right now. It’s better to keep what you have and fix the appliance or return it and have another made that will fit correctly.

Crowns usually have to be cut off the tooth using a high speed hand piece; they shouldn’t be able to be removed by the slight pressure an appliance exerts on them. So if this appliance is forcing the crown off, then either the appliance needs adjusting or the crown isn’t cemented properly onto a sound tooth structure.

Hope I’ve been of some help with this and that you’ll talk to your dentist about an adjustment on the appliance to save your tooth.

Additional information: If your crown is loose now, it’s allowing the bacteria to seep under the crown and reach the unprotected tooth as I stated above. This can lead to decay of this tooth causing it to be non-restorable. Perhaps you should ask your dentist to use different cement, a glass ionomer preferably. Also we always try to save a natural tooth, which is what you still have under the crown. The root and tooth are still there, just missing the enamel so the crown would fit over it. So, to answer your question, this is the way I would put it to a patient. We are going to try a different cement this time, and let’s take an impression of your mouth to send to the lab along with this appliance. This way they will have a replica of your teeth and mouth (this could have changed a little with all the recememts you’ve had done) which will aid them in making any necessary adjustment to the appliance. Now if she tells you the crown can’t be re-cemented again, ask why? There are “reasons” they can’t, not just because it’s “come off” so many times. That’s not a good reason, unless it’s affected the margins of the tooth and it no longer seats correctly. Then she would be recommending a new crown for the tooth. No, and I repeat NO dentist will want to do an extraction and replace it with a 3 unit bridge or an implant, just because the crown keeps coming off. There has to be a reason that the tooth is non-restorable. If you can’t get the answers you need from this dentist, I suggest you find someone with a little more experience with crown and bridge work and with your appliance. I’ve thought about your question and knew I had to add more that what I did yesterday for my answer. Sorry this is so long, I do get on a roll sometimes when it comes to something I know, and that’s dentistry. Good luck!

Sleep Apnea–Dental/Oral Appliance Therapy–Testimonial.wmv