Did you know that sleep apnea goes beyond the common snoring we all know? Snoring is only a side effect of sleep apnea. In fact, this is a very serious medical condition which causes the patient to stop breathing while sleeping, thus decreasing the oxygen levels inside the body, resulting in other severe conditions such are hypertension or hear attack, or stroke. Due to interrupted sleep, people suffering from sleep apnea wake up in the morning more tired than normal people, so they are prone to attention deficit disorders and lack of concentration during the day. This may impact their performances at work and their social life.
At the Snoring Center, doctors investigate sleep apnea, so they find out more about this life threatening disease, which can kill people so easily, as death occurs while sleeping. This is a show which gives you some clues on sleep apnea, so you can better understand how to proceed in such cases:
Snoring is one of the most annoying human habits. It can destroy sleep, rest and even families. It can also raise your cost of living, because you’d need and extra bedroom and thicker, insulated walls.
But snoring is not exclusively human. There are a few animals which snore. I’m not talking about horses, as snoring is for them part of their communication. Let’s take for example dogs: dogs snore, especially those breeds with a flat face and wrinkled skin around their nose.
Or rabbits. If you cannot imagine how a tiny rabbit is able to snore, watch this little video and have fun:
Have you ever heard a dog snoring? I can tell you this is the funniest thing ever: dogs snore pretty much like humans, and they roll their eyeballs during sleep, so I suppose they too dream, like we do. My dog even barks in the sleep sometimes.
But when the dog shares the bedroom with you, having an extra snorer in the room can turn into a nightmare. Not all dogs snore. Most of the times, dogs who snore are those dogs with the nose deep inside their face, like bulldogs. Their face is built in such a way that air passages are never fully open, thus causing them to snore, exactly just like humans do.
If you pay attention, you’ll notice that some dog breeds breathe heavier than others. This also influences the probability of snoring in dogs. Causes can be multiple. Sometimes, dogs may develop allergies, which affect their airways, so you’ll probably have to go to the vet to seek for advice and medication.
The veterinarian is, by all means, the best person who can assess the situation and give you remedies, so you can have your dog in the bedroom with you and still sleep at night.
Snoring can become bothersome both for the snorer and for his family. This may result in tiredness, due to lack of proper night rest. After a long night’s snoring, I wake up exhausted and very low on energy, so I can’t say my wife is the only sufferer from my snoring out loud all night long. As we are both tired of this cure less ailment I have, we thought to investigate methods and devices to help me get rig of snoring, at least for a part of the night, if not completely. Here’s what we discovered:
Anti Snoring Pillow
One of the snoring causes is thought to be the improper position of the body during sleep. This position would cause air paths to narrow and air passage is obstructed, thus resulting in forced breathing and snoring. The anti snoring pillow has such a shape that it keeps your head in a position which is prone to avoiding restriction of airways.
Sleep Position Monitor
This is the funniest whatsoever device: it beeps each time the snorer turns into a position which favors snoring, such as laying on the back. The noise wakes up the snorer and he becomes aware that he needs to change position. Poor bed partner! You can imagine those beeps wake up everybody sharing the same bed with the snoring person.
Snore Ball
This is, as the name says, a ball. It is destinate to be placed inside the snorers pajamas, at the back. When the snorer attempts to change position in his sleep, and tries to sleep on his back, the ball becomes painful, causing him to avoid that position which is snoring favorable. You don’t have to buy a special snore ball. Any other ball, like tennis balls or golf balls would do the trick.
Nasal Dilators
These are devices which are inserted into the nostrils, thus forcing them to remain open all night long, and preventing snoring. It may sound attractive and useful, but I challenge you to try to sleep with those things inside your nose. Then we might talk more about this snoring preventing, sleep preventing, rest preventing device.
Anti Snoring Nasal Strips
These are similar to the dilators. They are some plastic pieces which are to be introduces in the nose, to keep nostrils open during sleep. They are safe and cheap, and many people reported them to be effective, so they are maybe the most used anti snoring devices.
Probably there are some others. I’m still testing the anti snoring pillow, but is seems my bad habit is stronger than any device, so I’ll have to practice some more, in order to let my wife sleep restfully.
Unlike adults, who are snoring from reasons like obesity, smoking, or alcohol, in children the problem becomes more serious, as snoring indicates an affection which should be timely treated, in order to prevent it to become chronic.
The main reason why children’s snoring needs to be observed and treated is that one of its major symptoms is sleep apnea. Sleep apnea can cause lots of damages in a child’s body and behaviour, as difficulties of speech, delays in growing (due to the fact that the body consumes lots of energy for breathing at night), hyperactivity (as a consequence of the lack of sleep and of tiredness), or poor school performance, deficit of attention, also due to improper night rest.
If you notice such symptoms in your child, you should take him to the pediatrician as soon as possible. Snoring can also be caused by allergy attacks, which also are frequent in children who developed intolerance to certain allergens.
Asthma is another trigger for snoring in children. Asthma attacks can be extremely severe and the child may panic and even die. This is not a joke. Take your child to the doctor at any unusual manifestation that you notice. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Then you’ll be sorry you didn’t pay attention to your children.
The true causes of snoring are most probably still unknown, yet there are some remedies which proved to be working for some people.
First of all, you should know that snoring occurs only during sleeping, and it is caused by the vibration of the airways. The fact that it happens only when we sleep, thus when our muscles are relaxed, it seems to be a direct connection between snoring and muscle relaxation.
Most Known Causes Of Snoring
Allergies: because one of the allergy symptoms is airways clogging, this may result in snoring loudly
Alcohol Ingestion: this makes airways react and vibrate, causing a snoring effect
Cold and flu: the bigger mucus secretion that occurs when we suffer from cold is a cause of clogging the air passages, and our body’s natural reaction is to keep breathing at all costs, thus leading to extremely loud snoring and suffocation symptoms.
Obesity: snoring is one of the effects of being overweight
Nasal sprays overuse: this can cause irritation of the throat, thus being a cause of snoring
For whatever unknown reason, snoring seems to affect mostly middle-aged men. There are also women snoring, but the incidence is much smaller than in male population.
A possible cause is that women produce progesterone hormones, and these hormones inhibit snoring. Based on this fact, there are several anti-snoring devices which use progesterone as the main substance.
Snoring happens because of the vibration of the upper air paths, and it may include the throat, the mouth and the nose. Blockages in any part of the respiratory tract at this level will translate in snoring. It occurs involuntarily, and that’s why a proper treatment is so difficult to find. If you are a mild snorer, there’s probably nothing to worry about, but in case of heavy snorers, besides the fact that nobody in the house can rest at night, their life is threatened by this affection. They are prone to death in sleep by suffocation. Apnea, as doctors use to say.
LAUP: Laser-Assisted Uvulopalatoplasty
How many snorers can pronounce quickly and correctly “Uvulopalatoplasty” or “Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty”? If it makes your tongue stick, then you may use the abbreviations: LAUP and UPPP. They are mainly very similar surgical procedures, which consist of cutting the uvula, that dangling part which hangs inside your throat. A newer snoring surgery procedure, called Radio Frequency Tissue Ablation or Samnoplasty, is directed also towards the no one enemy when it comes to snoring, namely the uvula.
Wow! Aren’t you scared to death already by these procedures of snoring surgery?
Not that today’s April Fools Day, but there are several types of snorers which I want to introduce to you:
The light snorer: typically women, light snorers can barely be heard when snorig. They are more making some whistling noises, which by no means would trouble the sleep of their bed partner. They are the happiest of all snoring people, because nobody complains, and nobody wakes them up in the middle of the night to ask them to change the sleeping position.
The mild snorer: the same women, but after they caught a cold or a flu. Now their air paths are clogged, so the air has no place to enter and get out of the lungs as it should, so the whistling becomes louder. There are also accompanying noises which occasionally can be sleep disturbing. Although the bed partner may be unhappy, there is no reason for alert for the neighbors or for the family members who sleep in other rooms.
The common snorer: only a few women and a lot of men share this category. They are the most numerous, and they make noises which resemble very well with the pig’s language. Once their bed partner manages to make them change position, they stop snoring for a while, so there’s time for the other to get asleep and get some rest. Children in the other rooms will hear them through the walls and through the doors, but this won’t prevent their sleeping, under no circumstances.
The heavy snorer: beware of this type of snoring person. They are like an orchestra, they make about 5-6 different types of noises in the same time, so sleeping is definitely out of the question. Occasionally, the heavy snorer wakes up because he hears himself snoring, and this is the best situation of all. Imagine if such a snorer is deaf and snores you to the morning? If your bed partner is one of them, them you must be loving him too much since you are still together after several years of marriage.