Snoring and sleep apnea: causes, treatment and prevention

Snor­ing is a well-known and very com­mon prob­lem, despite the fact that most peo­ple are unaware that they have sleep apnea, the symp­tom of which is snor­ing. There are a num­ber of fac­tors that pre­dis­pose to snor­ing, so the pre­ven­tion of apnea is to elim­i­nate or pre­vent them.

Read about the caus­es and treat­ment of snor­ing in a new Med­AboutMe arti­cle.

Snoring: causes and consequences

To most peo­ple, snor­ing seems to be some­thing friv­o­lous and does not require treat­ment. But in fact, the spe­cif­ic sounds made dur­ing sleep sig­nal that some “detail” is faulty in the human mech­a­nism. So snor­ing is a kind of warn­ing shot.

Snor­ing is dan­ger­ous because it can be accom­pa­nied by obstruc­tive sleep apnea syn­drome. When a per­son snores in a dream, at this time the soft tis­sues of the orophar­ynx vibrate, and at the moment they close, air is blocked and breath­ing stops, respec­tive­ly. This “breath­less” moment is called apnea. Such a syn­drome is fraught with pro­longed res­pi­ra­to­ry arrest — from sec­onds to sev­er­al min­utes. The dan­ger is that dur­ing the absence of breath­ing in the blood, the lev­el of oxy­gen drops sharply, the heart­beat quick­ens, arrhyth­mia and blood pres­sure drops occur. Dur­ing these inter­vals, the brain, in dire need of oxy­gen, sends an impulse to wake up and the per­son wakes up.

Such paus­es in breath­ing dur­ing the night can occur fre­quent­ly, and there­fore the body does not ful­ly rest and does not receive full recov­ery. This explains chron­ic lack of sleep, drowsi­ness dur­ing the day, dis­trac­tion, irri­tabil­i­ty and fatigue. And that’s not all: ahead of a per­son with sleep apnea, mem­o­ry dete­ri­o­ra­tion, loss of atten­tion, the devel­op­ment of heart dis­ease, hyper­ten­sion, hor­mon­al fail­ure, and impaired kid­ney func­tion can wait. More­over, the prospect of heart attack and stroke increas­es.

Symp­toms of com­plete (obstruc­tive) sleep apnea:

• Loud snor­ing;
• severe drowsi­ness dur­ing the day;
• fre­quent awak­en­ings at night;
• fatigue under nor­mal load;
• morn­ing increase in blood pres­sure;
• old age (over 60 years).

The elder­ly suf­fer the most from sleep apnea. This is due to hyper­tro­phy of the soft palate, which is observed with senile lethar­gy of the mus­cles of the oral cav­i­ty. The loss of the for­mer tone of these mus­cles leads to the fact that they become mobile and prone to vibra­tion. As a result, dur­ing sleep, the air­ways nar­row — and then snor­ing occurs.

Snoring treatment

The cause of snor­ing is iden­ti­fied by a sleep spe­cial­ist, this is a doc­tor whose com­pe­tence is to trace sleep dis­or­ders and cure them. When exam­in­ing a patient, a som­nol­o­gist will check the absence of patholo­gies in the nasophar­ynx that inter­fere with the nor­mal­iza­tion of breath­ing. Since the prob­lem can lie in sev­er­al direc­tions, the som­nol­o­gist, in accor­dance with it, will issue a refer­ral to an oto­laryn­gol­o­gist, nutri­tion­ist, den­tist, so that the treat­ment of snor­ing is com­pre­hen­sive.

Snor­ing is treat­ed with con­ser­v­a­tive meth­ods in accor­dance with the cause of its occur­rence. So, if it is caused by obe­si­ty, then a diet is pre­scribed. And always patients are rec­om­mend­ed spe­cial gym­nas­tics to strength­en the mus­cles of the lar­ynx.

Sur­gi­cal treat­ment of snor­ing is used in extreme cas­es.

Drug treat­ment of snor­ing is based on spray for­mu­la­tions, like Silence Forte, Slipex, etc. Such sprays pro­duce a spe­cial foam that lies on the mucous mem­brane of the lar­ynx and there­by mois­tur­izes and soft­ens it. This reduces the vol­ume and inten­si­ty of snor­ing dur­ing sleep.

It should be not­ed that sprays are not an uncon­di­tion­al treat­ment for sleep apnea, you need to con­sult a doc­tor with a solu­tion to this prob­lem.

Snoring Prevention

Snor­ing does not occur by itself: it needs the appro­pri­ate pre­req­ui­sites, and long-term and cor­rect pre­ven­tion is impor­tant to lev­el them.

Since one of the com­mon caus­es of snor­ing is ENT patholo­gies, dis­eases such as sinusi­tis, ade­noidi­tis, polyps, devi­at­ed nasal sep­tum, and enlarged ton­sils should be treat­ed. Surgery may be required: ade­no­to­my, ton­sil­lec­to­my, rhino­plas­ty, somno­plas­ty (cor­rec­tion of the shape of the soft palate).

To strength­en the mus­cles of the res­pi­ra­to­ry tract, pul­mo­nolo­gists and som­nol­o­gists rec­om­mend spe­cial drops based on essen­tial oils — their action tones the mus­cles and reduces irri­ta­tion of the throat, soft­en­ing it. In addi­tion, there are spe­cial devices in the arse­nal of ther­a­peu­tic agents, such as: nip­ples to improve the tone of the palate and pre­vent its vibra­tion, stick­ers with essen­tial oils for the wings of the nose.

Doc­tors say that peo­ple suf­fer­ing from snor­ing need to sleep on their side, since in this posi­tion snor­ing is less dan­ger­ous, and on a high pil­low or on a high head­board. For those who pre­fer to sleep on their backs, a lit­tle trick has been invent­ed: a pock­et is sewn to the back of the paja­mas and a small ten­nis ball is placed in it. Then the per­son will be forced to roll over on his side.

Pre­ven­tion of bad habits is anoth­er com­po­nent in the fight against snor­ing. Nico­tine is known to be a strong res­pi­ra­to­ry irri­tant. In addi­tion, it pro­vokes tis­sue swelling. Alco­hol acts on the mus­cles of the mouth, relax­ing it. There­fore, it is rec­om­mend­ed, if not a com­plete refusal, then at least the max­i­mum reduc­tion in the num­ber of cig­a­rettes and the vol­ume of alco­holic bev­er­ages tak­en. This rec­om­men­da­tion is espe­cial­ly rel­e­vant before bed­time.

Sleep­ing pills have the same neg­a­tive effect as alco­hol and cig­a­rettes, so you should avoid them if pos­si­ble.

It is impor­tant to mon­i­tor your own weight, as excess kilo­grams great­ly impairs res­pi­ra­to­ry para­me­ters. Over­weight means a body mass index above 29 — this is already a direct path to obe­si­ty. There­fore, experts advise chang­ing food habits and switch­ing to an active motor mode.

Thus, the treat­ment of snor­ing large­ly depends on the patient him­self, on his abil­i­ty to dis­ci­pline him­self and con­trol his health.