When You Can’t Tolerate A CPAP Machine To Treat Sleep Apnea

If you’re one of the millions of Americans who suffer from sleep apnea, you know how debilitating bad sleep can be over time. You may face any of these problems daily due to poor sleep:

• Irritability
• Mood swings
• Depression
• Difficulty concentrating
• Daytime sleepiness
• Fatigue
• Memory problems
• Snoring
• Headaches
• Anxiety

You may also have medical problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, or obesity due to sleep apnea. The sleep apnea struggle is real, but there are treatments available that are easier to withstand than CPAP—continuous positive airway pressure. CPAP machines use mild air pressure to keep your airway open at night and are used by people who have been diagnosed with one of the three types of sleep apnea.

While CPAP does a great job of keeping your airway open while you sleep, the machine, mask, and tubing of a CPAP machine can be very hard to take for many people. CPAP machines are not for everyone, and if you’ve tried CPAP in the past but were not able to sleep with it, you are not alone. The good news is that other treatment options are available at your Des Moines, Iowa sleep apnea dentist’s office. If you live in Iowa and have sleep apnea, you’ve come to the right place to learn about CPAP alternatives in Des Moines available today.

Popular, Effective Alternative to CPAP

While CPAP has been the gold standard for treating sleep apnea in Des Moines for many decades, times are changing, and Iowa sleep apnea dentists are turning to Oral Appliance Therapy (OAT) to keep the jaw in its optimal position while you sleep.

Oral appliance therapy places your lower jaw in a forward position, which makes it impossible for your airway to collapse. When your airway collapses, as it does during the most common type of sleep apnea, Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), you will gasp and choke for air after your breathing stops for several seconds. This may happen hundreds of times per night, and that’s why you feel so bad the next day. You were struggling for air all throughout the night.

Oral Appliance Therapy is effective, reliable sleep apnea treatment that requires nothing but the appliance that many say resembles a mouth guard. Your Des Moines sleep apnea dentist will perform a thorough evaluation of your mouth, get a complete medical history, and examine any sleep studies performed on you. After all of this information is reviewed, an oral appliance will be custom-made for you. You will wear it at night, and you will soon experience the best night’s sleep of your life. With good sleep will come more restful nights, more productive days, and hopefully, fewer medical problems.

While it may take a few nights to adapt to having the oral appliance in your mouth, you will soon find that Oral Appliance Therapy is an easy, convenient, pain-free way to correct the potentially life-threatening sleep disorder known as Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

Many Des Moines sleep apnea dentists consider Oral Appliance Therapy to be even more effective than CPAP because OAT is easier to commit to than CPAP. People who travel a lot for work find it nearly impossible to take their CPAP apparatus with them on business trips, and the sheer bulkiness of CPAP is a big turn-off for many sleep apnea sufferers.

Here are some other advantages of the CPAP alternative in Des Moines known as Oral Appliance Therapy:

• Comfortable—no machine motors, tubes, or masks
• Convenient—easy to pack for travel
• Easy to clean—simply brush your oral appliance like you would your own teeth or soak it while you perform your oral hygiene routine
• Discreet—simply slip it in your mouth at night; no one will know except your partner!
• Non-surgical—sleep apnea surgery is always a last resort
• Non-mechanical—no loud motor noises while you’re trying to sleep!