Female Snoring: Causes and Treatments

Snor­ing “spoils” many people’s lives with its ter­ri­ble rat­tling, and not only those close to them, but also the snor­er him­self. Don’t make fun of some­one who snores or get annoyed by their vibrat­ing sounds. It is much bet­ter to look for the cause togeth­er and, when deter­min­ing it, choose the most effec­tive way to elim­i­nate it. After all, very often snor­ing can be a har­bin­ger of a seri­ous ill­ness, such as a stroke or myocar­dial infarc­tion, because the work of the heart wors­ens. Also, due to con­stant snor­ing, hor­mon­al dis­or­ders devel­op, hyper­ten­sion is aggra­vat­ed, and metab­o­lism is dis­turbed.

Snor­ing is a spe­cif­ic process with a dis­tinct vibrat­ing sound that accom­pa­nies a per­son­’s breath­ing through­out the night. By itself, snor­ing in women is no dif­fer­ent from men. But, if in men it is in most cas­es con­sid­ered a com­mon occur­rence, then snor­ing in women more often indi­cates a seri­ous prob­lem.

In addi­tion to sig­nif­i­cant dis­com­fort, snor­ing also caus­es oth­er trou­bles, up to a seri­ous fam­i­ly con­flict. Very rarely, a snor­er hears his “own vibra­tions”, which can­not be said about the sleep­ing per­son next to him. Annoy­ing rat­tling nois­es through­out the night can neg­a­tive­ly affect a loved one who shares a room or bed with a snor­er. Upon awak­en­ing, he will feel irri­ta­ble and tired. Indeed, when snor­ing, the vol­ume of sounds emit­ted can reach 112 dB.

Causes of snoring

The caus­es of snor­ing dif­fer from case to case. Very often it occurs in peo­ple with some air­way defects. Mal­oc­clu­sion, nar­row­ness of the nasal pas­sages, elon­ga­tion of the pala­tine uvu­la, all these patholo­gies are con­gen­i­tal, often lead­ing to snor­ing. If changes are detect­ed, the doc­tor will select the nec­es­sary cor­rec­tive treat­ment, up to surgery. Snor­ing in women can be caused by excess weight, the pres­ence of ade­noids or polyps in the nose, defects in the nasal sep­tum (for exam­ple, its cur­va­ture), as well as enlarged ton­sils.

The tone of the pha­ryn­geal mus­cles is neg­a­tive­ly affect­ed by smok­ing, drink­ing alco­hol, abuse of sleep­ing pills, lack of sleep or fatigue, etc.

There are many rea­sons for snor­ing. It often affects over­weight peo­ple. Overeat­ing, espe­cial­ly at night, neg­a­tive­ly affects not only the gen­er­al con­di­tion of the body or the qual­i­ty of sleep, but also the con­di­tion of the diaphragm. Exces­sive food intake puts pres­sure on it, which results in poor breath­ing and bow­el func­tion. It has been proven that with a weight loss of at least 10%, breath­ing dur­ing sleep improves.

Snor­ing often occurs when the wrong pos­ture dur­ing the night rest, espe­cial­ly on the back. In this posi­tion, the tongue can sink, which con­tributes to the vio­la­tion of the breath­ing process. To pre­vent the tongue from sink­ing in and, accord­ing­ly, snor­ing, it is rec­om­mend­ed to slight­ly raise the head­board.

Alco­hol abuse can lead to snor­ing and sleep apnea because alco­holic drinks relax the mus­cles in the throat.

With nar­row air­ways, there is also a seri­ous risk of stop­ping breath­ing dur­ing sleep.

Smok­ing can also cause snor­ing, as a result of irri­ta­tion of the mucous mem­branes of the throat and nose with tobac­co smoke. This can con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of the inflam­ma­to­ry process and swelling of the tra­chea or phar­ynx.

Treatment of snoring in women

Treat­ment for snor­ing may include one or more of the fol­low­ing:

• When obese, weight loss should be tak­en care of.
• The use of caps (spe­cial devices for the oral cav­i­ty), which can increase the tone and breath­ing through the nose. They usu­al­ly reduce the vol­ume and pre­vent vibra­tion. Some­times its com­plete dis­ap­pear­ance is pos­si­ble after pro­longed use of the cap.
• An unusu­al breath­ing tech­nique using the didgeri­doo pipe. By play­ing this Aus­tralian pipe, the upper res­pi­ra­to­ry tract is trained, as well as the mus­cles devel­op and the lar­ynx, nasophar­ynx and palate are strength­ened.
• Implants can pre­vent snor­ing very effec­tive­ly and quick­ly.
• Ortho­don­tic treat­ment to cor­rect jaw defects.
• The use of cry­oplas­ty (cold treat­ment) or laser. This tech­nique is based on achiev­ing a ther­a­peu­tic effect by expos­ing the palate mucosa to cold or heat, respec­tive­ly.

The dangers of snoring

When snor­ing in women dur­ing a cold, due to impaired breath­ing through the nose, you should not wor­ry too much. Of course, it irri­tates not only loved ones, but also inter­feres with the snor­er him­self, caus­ing dis­com­fort. There­fore, in the morn­ing, fatigue and “bro­ken­ness” are very often felt. Loud snor­ing wakes every­one up, and the brain does not have time to recov­er and rest dur­ing the night, which leads to a decrease in per­for­mance. But as soon as the symp­toms of a cold pass, the snor­ing itself will dis­ap­pear.

Snor­ing con­tributes to some seri­ous con­se­quences. Among them, the most dan­ger­ous is sleep apnea (sud­den hold­ing of breath dur­ing sleep). Dur­ing the night, apnea can be repeat­ed sev­er­al times, in the worst case, com­plete ces­sa­tion of breath­ing is pos­si­ble. In moments of apnea, the blood is not sat­u­rat­ed with oxy­gen in full and its defi­cien­cy occurs. There­fore, peo­ple with sleep apnea are more prone to acci­den­tal noc­tur­nal heart attacks and sud­den death. When deter­min­ing the cause of snor­ing and the occur­rence of apnea, it is imper­a­tive to car­ry out spe­cial­ized treat­ment.

Accord­ing to the results of stud­ies, it turned out that over time, snor­ing can lead to brain destruc­tive changes that con­tribute to a decrease in the vol­ume of the gray mat­ter of the brain and, accord­ing­ly, to a decrease in men­tal abil­i­ties.

How to get rid

Prop­er sleep on your side is con­sid­ered the best option for get­ting rid of “night ser­e­nades”. It is desir­able to ensure the cor­rect posi­tion of the head, so it is bet­ter to get rid of large pil­lows.

When the cause of snor­ing is dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing, the treat­ment of snor­ing should be aimed at restor­ing free breath­ing. There­fore, nasal drops or sprays can be used to clear the nose. In patholo­gies, surgery is indi­cat­ed: cor­rec­tion of the nasal sep­tum, removal of ton­sils or polyps.

In some cas­es, drug or phys­io­ther­a­py treat­ment of snor­ing is rec­om­mend­ed, as well as weight loss in obe­si­ty.