If you are looking to improve your overall health, including increasing your resistance to disease, then it’s time to consider sleep apnea treatment. Sleep apnea is a potentially deadly condition that impacts essentially every system in the body, leading to widespread health problems. In particular, it can stress your immune system, making it less effective against infection.
Note: In Response to COVID-19, our office will have limited staff until March 31, 2020, but will be still available to answer questions and make appointments.
How Sleep Apnea Impacts Your Immune System
Sleep apnea stresses your entire body. Sleep is your body’s natural restoration routine. The body rejuvenates itself from the stresses of the day and prepares for the next day’s challenges.
This includes the immune system. For many years, we have known that not getting enough sleep is related to being more vulnerable to illness. This is true with sleep apnea. People with sleep apnea get only a fraction of the sleep they need.Even spending extra hours in bed, they may still be short on sleep because they are being constantly awakened by their condition.
And it’s not just the quantity of sleep that’s important, it’s the quality. Sleep apnea also leads to lower-quality sleep because a sleep apnea sufferer never manages to reach the deeper, regenerative sleep that your body needs.
Recent studies have highlighted the impact of sleep apnea on your immune system. One study from last year showed that people with sleep apnea have diminished immune response to disease.
Part of the problem is that sleep apnea actually leads your immune system to be in a constantly heightened state. Inflammation is one of the body’s main responses to disease and injury–it’s a vital tool the body uses to fight infection. However, when you have sleep apnea, your body is constantly in a state of low-grade inflammation. In addition to making your immune system unready to respond to infection, constant inflammation has negative impacts on your body’s organs. It contributes to dementia, kidney disease, cancer, and more.
So, treating sleep apnea can help in the short-term by improving your body’s response to disease, and in the long-term by helping you avoid the effects of chronic inflammation.
Finding the Right Sleep Apnea Treatment for You
Most doctors prescribe CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway pressure) for sleep apnea. While this is a good, effective treatment, it’s not right for everyone. If you’ve tried it and it’s not right for you, we have an alternative: oral appliance therapy, which is simple, comfortable, convenient, and effective.
Plus, most people don’t have to try CPAP before they can get approved for oral appliance therapy. Oral appliance therapy is a frontline treatment for mild to moderate sleep apnea, and it’s available for frontline severe sleep apnea if there are reasons to believe you might not adapt well to CPAP.
Some researchers also recommend increasing your intake of antioxidants as part of sleep apnea treatment. This is not a standalone treatment, but it can help reverse some of the damage done by inflammation.
Sleep Apnea Treatment in Omaha
If you have sleep apnea (or suspect that you have undiagnosed sleep apnea), we can help you get an alternative treatment to CPAP that is also effective in helping restore your restful, rejuvenating sleep.
Our office will have limited staff available for taking calls and answering questions through March 31, 2020. Please call (402) 493-4175 for an appointment with a sleep dentist at the Advanced Dental Sleep Treatment Center in Omaha.
