If you have trouble enjoying a full night’s rest, it can begin to take a toll on your overall health. The consequences are even greater when you suffer from sleep apnea, a condition that affects your ability to breathe while asleep. If you have apnea, your body may wake you up tens or even hundreds of times per night, preventing you from completing a full sleep cycle. This leads to long-term sleep deprivation and its associated health consequences. While waking each day feeling tired has a serious effect on your mental health, left untreated, apnea can lead to serious problems for your cardiovascular health. Fortunately, we could provide therapy to help you regain your ability to breathe while asleep.
At your Poquoson, VA, sleep clinic, we offer an alternative apnea treatment to CPAP machines in the form of oral appliance therapy. By taking custom measurements of your oral structures, we can design a mouthguard that opens your airways as you fall asleep. This prevents the tissues of your throat from closing, preventing the body’s need to wake you up to begin breathing again.
When Sleep Deprivation Affects Your Health
If you have ever started your day feeling like you could not get a moment’s rest, you understand the difficulty of going about your business with sleep deprivation. While stress and anxiety can lead to the occasional restless night, apnea causes you to lose your energy for days or weeks at a time. Each night your body wakes up constantly, meaning you never obtain the quality eight hours of sleep you so deeply crave. You could even find yourself falling asleep throughout the afternoon at completely inopportune times.
Sleep Apnea Contributes To Metabolic Dysfunction
When you cannot get a full night’s rest, your body is chronically deprived of oxygen as you attempt to sleep. Your body may react by increasing your heart rate to compensate and deliver air to your extremities. This stress on the cardiovascular system can lead to a severe increase in blood pressure and other concerns for your metabolic health. Studies show that patients with apnea have lower insulin sensitivity, putting them at higher risk for diabetes.
Treatment With Oral Appliance Therapy
If you have obstructive sleep apnea, or the blockage of your airways by soft tissues when you sleep, oral appliance therapy can help. This alternative to noisy CPAP machines opens your airways with a custom mouthguard. By customizing your appliance directly to the shape of your mouth, it fits far more comfortably each night than a bulky CPAP.
Speak With Hunt Sleep Solutions About A Better Way To Treat Your Sleep Apnea
If you suspect apnea is the cause of your trouble getting a full night’s rest, let us know! To find out how we can help, contact Hunt Sleep Solutions in Poquoson, VA at 757.868.6651.
