Why You Should Stop Snoring Part Five –

Try CRRS –Clear nasal condition, Reduce throat swelling, Reduce reflux, Strengthen throat muscles.

The reason to stop your snoring now, is to prevent the condition becoming OSA. OSA stands for obstructive sleep apnea. Doctors define sleep apnea based on a test performed in the special sleep laboratory. Here the oxygen level, breathing activity and brain activity is recorded during actual sleep. Depending on how often a person stops breathing, and how long that non-breathing (apnea) lasts, we give them a score that says yes, they have OSA or no, they don’t have it. If they are diagnosed OSA, then usually insurance will pay for recommended treatments that may include surgery and/or CPAP. If they fall below a certain score, these therapies may not be covered. CPAP stands for continuous positive airway pressure

However, many persons don’t have full OSA scores, but are still fatigued, tired next day, fall asleep or nod off and may have a traffic or industrial accident. They gain weight because they eat to fend off the fatigue.
Dr Christian Guilleminault of Stanford University studied tired young men and women who didn’t fit the OSA diagnosis after having overnight sleep studies. He found that in deep sleep they had frequent arousals where they came out of deep sleep. They didn’t have periods of apnea (no-breathing), but they had significantly less deep sleep. This turned out to be the cause of their fatigue. When treated, their fatigue cleared.
Should you have an overnight sleep study done? If hypertension, obesity, fatigue, is present, with overnight chocking and restlessness, such a study will help with the accurate diagnosis.
if you have the signs of frequent periods of non-breathing, with drops in oxygen levels, and a diagnosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnea, OSA, a therapy that works is Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, or CPAP. With CPAP you sleep with a mask that is attached to an air source that applies air at a certain pressure that forces air into the lungs and overcomes airway blockage. The results may be dramatic: end of morning fatigue, increase in energy and cognitive ability, even increased sexual energy.
As was pointed out in the Stanford study above, the snoring may not be the severe kind, but if the snoring is there, or the fatigue next day persists, therapeutic measures are indicated.
My philosophy is, instead of sending any snoring patient first to the sleep lab, let’s use the simple steps outlined previously:
o Clear the nose
o Reduce the swollen throat tissue
o Reduce Gastroesophageal reflux disease GERD
o Strengthen the throat muscles
o

These are simple, easy to do, and don’t involve surgery or expensive therapies. Then, if the snoring, morning fatigue, sleepiness persists, then I order the sleep study. Refer to this standard therapy as the CRRS method. With the CRRS method, you clear the nasal condition with Hydro Pulse Sinus irrigation, you reduce the swollen throat membranes with Hydro Pulse Throat pulsation irrigation, stop the Gerd with diet and bed position, and strengthen the throat muscles with the above throat muscle exercises.
Yes, I left out weight loss in the above list, because it is very difficult to lose weight when you snore and have morning fatigue and need that cookie for energy to get your work done.
It is important to realize that all patients are different. Some have huge tonsils that Hydro Pulse therapy hasn’t been able to shrink and would benefit by having surgery; it may be necessary to remove the tonsils to open the airway. Some patients are so sick from the effects of poor sleep( especially hypertension,) and snoring that there is a rush to get them into therapy of CPAP.
What is most important is to stop the snoring as soon as possible to prevent the condition from developing into OSA, where the brain doesn’t get adequate oxygen.