Sleep Apnea Treatment Lake in the Hills, IL
Get the rest that you deserve, and treat your snoring and sleep apnea now!
Those with snoring and sleep apnea probably know it. You also know your partner nudged you a few times to tell you to ‘quit snoring’. And once you were awake, it took you hours to fall back to sleep. You wonder “Will I ever wake up again – full of energy and rested?”
Well, you aren’t alone. You aren’t the only one wondering when you’ll wake fully recharged and full of zest. Over half of all adults – 50% of the population – are getting less than the recommended amount of daily sleep. In addition, your sleep issues not only affect you, but it also burdens your bed partner and sometimes your entire family’s lives as well.
Sleep apnea is a common sleep disorder that can lead to a host of health problems if left untreated. Compassionate Dental Care’s dedicated sleep apnea treatment center, Sleep Better Illinois, is a specialized clinic that provides treatment options for individuals diagnosed with mild-to-moderate obstructive sleep apnea. Their team of experienced and compassionate professionals can help diagnose and treat this condition to improve your overall health and well-being.
Lack of sleep can lead to diabetes, depression, hypertension, obesity, heart attacks, and strokes.
If you haven’t had an opportunity to adequately rest your body, on a regular basis, it’s cheated out of the chance to fully repair itself. As a result, your health is being compromised. Prolonged sleep deprivation results in health consequences that run the gamut from annoying to life-threatening. If your sleep problems aren’t addressed – depression, obesity, diabetes, lack of libido, heart attack, hypertension, and stroke are all extremely genuine outcomes.
Benefits of Oral Dental Appliances
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, approximately one-third of the American population suffers from sleep disorders with excessive snoring and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) among the most common. As with virtually all health disorders, there is more than one treatment option for people suffering from excessive snoring or OSA. In addition to invasive surgery which can involve a painful and difficult recovery, is the use of a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine and oral appliance therapy.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) has recommended the use of oral appliances as the first line of treatment for mild to moderate OSA. AASM further states that oral appliances are indicated for patients who do not respond to CPAP, are not deemed good candidates for CPAP, or fail to use their CPAP for the following reasons:
- Heat and pressure of the mask is uncomfortable
- Restrictions on range of motion are intolerable
- Noise generated by the air pump disturbs restful sleep
- Difficulty keeping mask in place during sleep
Oral appliances serve as an easy and effective treatment option as they are simply designed to “clip” over your teeth while sleeping. This non-intrusive device keeps your throat from closing off the airway by either moving the lower jaw forward (mandibular repositioning) or realigning the position of the tongue. In some cases, particularly where the tongue positioning is a major causative factor, the retraining provided by the device can lead to the tongue eventually learning to position itself correctly so that wearing the device is no longer necessary. Patients immediately identify with the benefits of oral appliances over the burdensome CPAP machines.
Sleep Apnea FAQs
What is sleep apnea? Well, “apnea” is a general medical term that refers to not breathing, voluntarily or involuntarily. More specifically, sleep apnea causes a sufferer to stop breathing while sleeping for short intervals. This can last 10–30 seconds until your brain’s reflexes force a person to take a breath—by waking you up and interrupting your sleep cycle.
If you have sleep apnea, you could stop breathing hundreds of times per night, every night. Each apnea may sound like loud snoring to a partner or like you’re waking up gasping for air. Those with sleep apnea often don’t remember that it happens.
Every person needs oxygen. We can last a few weeks without food and several days without water, but what about air? We can only last a few minutes at the most. So, sleep apnea oxygen deprivation is a serious risk!
Sleep apnea can lead to:
- Daytime drowsiness: Because sleep apnea makes a person stop breathing during sleep, interrupting sleep cycles hundreds of times per night, he or she cannot achieve full rest. This can lead to involuntary sleep while driving or operating other machinery.
- Headaches and other pains: Sufferers can frequently wake with sleep apnea headaches. They may also have unexplained sleep apnea fatigue throughout the day, along with trembling muscles.
- Type 2 diabetes: According to research, it’s possible that sleep apnea causes diabetes in some people. This is likely because sleep deprivation disrupts insulin production and production of hormones that signal when someone is full.
- Heart problems: Repeated oxygen deprivation causes intense stress to the heart and blood vessels. It can lead to abnormal heartbeats, heart attacks, high blood pressure, and even death, if a sufferer already has heart disease.
- Liver disease: Studies have connected sleep apnea with liver scarring and function problems.
- Metabolic syndrome: This is a mix of problems that can include cholesterol issues, high blood sugar and pressure, and abdominal obesity. It can lead to heart attack and/or stroke.
- Adverse reactions to treatments: Sufferers can experience dangerous reactions to anesthesia, other medications, and surgery.
- Poor mental performance: Memory, concentration, creativity, and decision making capabilities can all decline.
- Mood problems: Sudden changes in mood can develop, along with irritability. Sleep apnea and depression are also connected for some.
- Increased weight: Fatigue and hormone imbalances brought on by sleep deprivation can also cause weight gain. Snoring and weight are also linked because being overweight can obstruct the airway.
- Loud snoring: Each apnea may take the form of loud snores. A spouse, partner, and/or children may also become sleep deprived as a result.
If you are experiencing one of these sleep apnea side effects or several of them, call our office today! You can also take our online sleep apnea quiz to get even more insight—although you won’t know for sure if you have sleep apnea until you receive a medical diagnosis.
Many in American culture talk about how difficult their jobs are. They talk about pulling all-nighters in order to finish a big project. We also talk about staying out late on the weekends or traveling all night. What effects do these episodes really have on us—especially if you chronically don’t get enough sleep?
If you can’t sleep well for just one night, you might just feel cranky for a day. But over time, sleep deprivation from sleep apnea or other causes reduces mental performance and may lead to health issues. It could leave you more open to illness by damaging your immune system, for example. And it can strip away your brain power.
Sleep deprivation can cause problems in more than a dozen areas shown below. People don’t want these negative effects. We just want the supposed benefits of being able to get more work or leisure time by cutting into our sleep time. But your work and leisure time are of lower quality when you’re sleep deprived.
Sleep deprivation over time can affect all the following and more:
- Mood: Too little sleep can make control of mood and temper more difficult. This can even turn into depression or chronic anxiety, if it is not addressed.
- Nervous system: Neurons and nerves can have a harder time sending and storing information.
- Mental performance: You could have trouble concentrating while trying to solve problems or be creative. Sleep debt can cause impatience, which can lead to hasty, poor decisions.
- Memory: Sleep helps encode and store information for the long-term. It also helps us concentrate on short-term memory tasks. Poor sleep, then, makes learning more difficult, along with knowledge-based work and other activities.
- Physical safety: Being chronically sleepy can lead to involuntarily drifting off to sleep. This is very dangerous while driving or operating other machinery—or even while cutting up food, jogging, and other activities.
- Balance: Balance and physical coordination can be lowered, leading to risks of trips, falls, and other mishaps.
- Digestion: The digestive system may not send enough of the hormone that tells you you are full. It may actually send more of the appetite hormone.
- Weight: Poor sleepers struggle to find the energy to exercise, which can affect their weight. Plus, sleep-deprived bodies release more insulin after each meal, which can lead to higher concentrations of bodily fat—and possibly lead to type 2 diabetes.
- Immune system: You could be more susceptible to viruses that cause the flu and the common cold.
- Blood pressure: Sleeping less than five hours can lead to risky high blood pressure.
- Cardiovascular system: Your heart could be at risk both from high blood pressure and higher inflammation in the heart and blood vessels.
- Hormones: Hormone production can be interrupted. These chemical signals are involved in growth in children and repair of cells, tissues, and muscles in everyone.
- Libido: Both men and women can suffer from low libido. Men may have lower levels of testosterone.
Unfortunately, the very activities that we want to enjoy by sacrificing sleep—work projects, time with loved ones, and others—can become more difficult, unsafe, and even impossible because of sleep deprivation, which can be brought on by mild sleep apnea or lifestyle choices.
There are simple ways to prioritize sleep a little more and get those last few minutes that you need. Also, sleep dentistry now offers sleep apnea devices that can give instant relief to trouble with sleep breathing. Just call your sleep apnea dentist at Sleep Better Illinois now!
Many years of studies have found that everyone needs adequate sleep. Sleep makes our mental abilities work better and our bodies function at their best. But you may have a more specific question: What is the correct number of hours of sleep for me?
The simple answer is that there is a range of hours of sleep advised for each age group. Below are the recommendations to start with for you and your family members. However, depending on your own circumstances and level of activity, your personal amount of necessary sleep might be different than your sleep range.
Hours of Recommended Sleep by Age Group
Find your own age range and sleep recommendations in the list below. Note also how many hours your child might need—this way you can understand his or her behavior and energy levels better.
Age Range: Number of hours of recommended sleep.
| Age range | Recommended hours of sleep |
| 0–3 months | 14–17 hours |
| 4–11 months | 12-15 hours |
| 1–2 years | 11-14 hours |
| 3–5 years | 10-13 hours |
| 6–13 years | 9-11 hours |
| 14–17 years | 8-10 hours |
| 18–25 years | 7-9 hours |
| 26–64 years | 7-9 hours |
| 65 or older | 7-8 hours |
Why is there a range? Because each person is different. Some people use more energy during their day and we all have different physical activity levels. Some people might have genetic reasons why they need to sleep more or less. You might personally sleep an hour more (or less) than recommended but still function well enough. Or sleep apnea symptoms could be ruining your sleep quality—which our dental sleep clinic can help with!
Let’s focus on what you can do now. We all need hope and a plan. Here are a few steps and ideas that you can try:
If you have obstructive sleep apnea symptoms, Take Sleep Better Illinois’ sleep quiz We can help determine if your symptoms are in need of further evaluation and if you will need to get a sleep study. Stop using caffeine sometime in the afternoon, possibly as early as 2:00 PM.
- Experiment to find the time that helps lead to better sleep.
- Go to bed at the same time every single night, even Saturday night.
- Stop using electronic screens about an hour before bed.
- Turn down lights and reduce noise during the hour before bed.
- Avoid alcohol before bed.
- Find the right bedroom temperature that helps you sleep. You may need the air to be colder, though your feet may need to stay warm using socks or a blanket.
- Improve your blanket and pillow.
- Try different sleep positions, including lying on your side.
- Use your sleep apnea solutions more consistently, or ask for a sleep apnea mouthpiece that is easier to use than other devices, while eliminating breathing problems at night.
Starting a new bedtime routine may take some time, so don’t be discouraged if trying one of these things doesn’t affect your sleep after just one night. Give it time, and make an earnest effort to make these changes stick before you resort to over-the-counter sleep medications.
Sleep Apnea Treatment Consultation
Sleep Better Illinois is conveniently located in Lake in the Hills, IL. If you are experiencing symptoms of sleep apnea, such as loud snoring, pauses in breathing during sleep, or excessive daytime sleepiness, don’t hesitate to contact Sleep Better Illinois for a free consultation. Their team can help you find the right treatment option to improve your sleep quality and overall health.
