You could be experiencing sleep apnea symptoms if you wake up feeling groggy, have headaches first thing in the morning, or feel drowsy throughout the day. The good news is that Excel Dental provides treatment for your Ozark sleep apnea. Using a custom oral appliance, we can help you:
Doctor Nick Matthews on sleep apnea
Dr. Nick Matthews on sleep apnea
Video Transcript
Sleep apnea is super important, and there’re tons and tons of literature on one, the importance of a good night’s sleep, and two, the dangers of obstructive sleep apnea, which is really the thing that we target the most. We intervene when we can, and we work closely with some local sleep physicians to treat patients in the mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea category. And what we mean when we say obstructive sleep apnea is that most people can go to sleep, they sleep on their backs. A lot of people these days are taking a sleep aid to help them go into a deeper sleep. Those things, a lot of the times, will relax the muscles in the neck, face, and jaws enough that your jaw and tongue start to fall backwards. As that happens, it narrows your airways. The literature that we’ve seen the last several years would indicate that even most people who just snore suffer from a level of sleep apnea that we didn’t used to appreciate. Intervention, especially in those people, can become very important.
So instead of resting, when you’re sleeping at night, if you’re snoring or entering into sleep apnea at all, your body is not really getting any rest. Mentally you might be asleep, but your body, if we put you on a heart monitor, it looks like you’re running wind sprints. So you sleep for a little while, you snore, or you stop breathing because you start entering in an apneic phase, and all of a sudden, your heart and brain activity spikes because it’s saying, ”Hey, I’m not getting any oxygen. Wake up a little bit.” So while that might not arouse you mentally from your sleep, the rest of your body systems came out of that sleep phase. So when we do sleep tests on people, and we look at the results, a lot of times people aren’t sleeping more than a handful of minutes a night and getting real rest.
Some people are having 30, 40, 50 episodes a minute or more. That means you wake up tired, you feel that real lull in the middle of the day, and your heart and brain didn’t get the rest they needed to really repair themselves and function good long term. And if it turns out they do have sleep apnea and they and their physicians are up for pursuing treatment for it, one of the things that we offer is an oral appliance or sleep device. So basically, it’s kind of like a mouthguard that you would wear for clenching and grinding, except it supports your jaw and keeps it from falling back and blocking your airway. So it’s a very comfortable device to wear. It’s easy. We’ve had a lot of patients that have tried a CPAP and failed with it because it’s too noisy or it’s too cumbersome, or they rip it off in the middle of the night or they don’t want to travel with it.
There’re a lot of things that they tell us, like, ”Hey, if I wear it, I sleep great, but the only problem is I only wear it one night a week,” and that’s not enough. Or, ”I didn’t wear it enough. My insurance will keep paying for it, so I took it back.” There’re a lot of things that come up, and we found that an oral appliance is easy, fit in your pocket, so you’re going to take it with you wherever you go. People will use what’s easy. That’s why nobody flosses. So if it’s easy, they’ll wear it. And an appliance certainly is easy, and it can really make a big impact on your cardiovascular health, your overall health, your brain activity. It can really be an impactful thing.
- Feel rested and ready to face the day upon awakening
- Be more alert and productive during your workday
- Reduce your snoring so you and your bed partner sleep better
- Lessen your chances of serious health complications
Call us today to get help for sleep apnea: (417) 233-4280. We’re located on West State Highway J, not far off US-65.
Sleep Better & Feel Better
With an oral device made just for you, we can eliminate the symptoms of sleep apnea, help you feel better, and let you enjoy a better quality of life. If you need a diagnosis for your sleep problems, then we can help you arrange for a sleep study in a hospital setting or order an at-home sleep test.
Our custom oral appliance will fit comfortably in your mouth, moving your lower jaw slightly forward to help keep your airway open. You’ll sleep more soundly, feel rested throughout the day, and lessen your risk of heart attacks, strokes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes – all of which have been linked to sleep apnea.
Plus, you’ll snore less since snoring is caused by air moving across the soft tissues in your throat. You and your bed partner will both enjoy a quieter, more restful night of sleep.
Find Out About Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea occurs when your airway becomes temporarily blocked while you’re sleeping. The tongue and other soft tissues in the back of your throat can relax to the point that they obstruct your airflow, causing you to stop breathing.
When this happens, your brain will cause your body to wake up and take in more air. Afterward, you’ll drift off to sleep again until the next episode of sleep apnea occurs. This cycle can repeat itself hundreds of times per night for sufferers of severe sleep apnea!
If you think you could be suffering from sleep apnea in Ozark, call us today for a consultation: (417) 233-4280. You can also request an appointment time online. Be sure to schedule your next regular checkup, too!
