A new snoring infographic that’s being distributed to help people find the cause of their snoring and get the best treatment has one major omission: it neglects one important cause of snoring.
Because we support good information for snoring and sleep apnea sufferers, we feel we have to talk about this omission.
The Good
We don’t want to say that there’s nothing good about this infographic, which does actually contain a lot of useful information for snorers and those who sleep with them. The infographic goes through four major sources of snoring:
- Nose
- Mouth breather
- Soft palate
- Tongue
It describes each of these potential sources of snoring and offers some simple tests you can try to determine which is the cause of your snoring. These tests are by no means comprehensive, but they can serve as a good start.
The infographic then recommends treatment options, which are a combination of at-home and over-the-counter treatments and oral appliance therapy. These treatment options are generally useful and worth trying, though there are a few dubious ones (like snoring drops).
The Bad
Unfortunately, this infographic fails because it doesn’t describe one of the most important causes of snoring: the collapse of your throat tissue during sleep. This is one of the most common causes of snoring and also one of the most serious. If your throat narrows at night, leading to snoring, it’s more likely to collapse, completely closing off your airway and causing sleep apnea. Without understanding this potential cause of snoring and sleep apnea, people might not seek out the treatment that serves them best.
If you want to learn all there is to know about snoring, we can help. Please call (402) 493-4175 for an appointment with an Omaha sleep dentist at the Advanced Dental Sleep Treatment Center.
