The promise of snoreplasty

    Snoring is caused by the vibration of tissues in your throat or palate or uvula (which is the triangular piece of flesh at the back of your throat).  As we get older the tissues get looser and flabbier and our snoring gets worse.  How can we counteract this? 

The so-called "conservative" approach focuses on changing your lifestyle.  Losing weight is a good start.  But more radical approaches involve shrinking, stiffening or removing the excess tissue.  This can be achieved through surgery, radio frequency equipment or, most recently by injection.

• Surgical removal of tissue, whether by laser or scalpel, is reported by patients to be very painful, and is expensive
• Shrinking the tissue by heating it via radiofrequency techniques (somnoplasty or coblation) is less painful and less expensive
• And now injection snoreplasty has emerged as the least painful, least expensive method.

Injection snoreplasty is the injection of a chemical called Sotradecol into the soft palate and uvula. This causes an inflammatory reaction that leads to scar tissue at the site of injection. As the scar tissue contracts, the palate and uvula tighten up and become shorter, thereby reducing snoring.  You'll typically need one to three treatments 6-8 weeks apart.  Short-term success in reducing snoring is about 80%.  Long-term data is not yet available -- the technique is still too new.

Perhaps most encouraging for those whose insurance will not cover treatments for simple snoring, snoreplasty is relatively inexpensive, as low as $35 per treatment, according a Medscape article.  You can find a list of doctors performing injection somnoplasty on Talk About Sleep.  In the Atlanta area, PutanEndtoSnoring's medical advisor, Dr. Samuel Michelson has considerable experience in the technique and has provided further information about the procedure on our site.

Is this information useful to you? Send us questions or feedback.  And remember, information provided by PutanEndtoSnoring does not substitute for the advice of your physician. 

  Feature article: Awareness of the health risks of    Obstructive Sleep Apnea
 

Sleep specialists have long been concerned that sleep apnea is widely under-diagnosed.  One reason is that even heavy snorers, whose partners know that they often gasp for air at night, do not tell their doctors of their condition.

Gyrus ENT (formerly Smith and Nephew ENT and Somnus) late last month commissioned a Harris Interactive survey of almost 3,000 adults in the U.S., which found that 55 percent of Americans either exhibit symptoms themselves or know someone who exhibits symptoms that have been linked to Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). The survey found that 72 percent of Americans are aware that snoring may be a sign of OSA, but only 22 percent of the respondents indicated that they were aware that OSA may contribute to heart disease.

"The Harris Interactive data demonstrates the need to educate Americans about snoring and obstructive sleep apnea, and Gyrus ENT has responded by increasing the number of patient education seminars at the local practice level," said Jerry Dowdy, President of Gyrus ENT.

Mr. Dowdy, of course, has a reason for his patient seminar initiative: he heads a company that makes the Somnoplasty system, medical devices that treat OSA. But patient education is a worthy goal, and indeed, PutanEndtoSnoring has the same goal -- to draw snorers' attention to the fact that they may be Snoring out an SOS.

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This section features some interesting posting to our forum.  Given the newness of this web site, there's not much there yet, but the query from Jim Kelly is worthy of response -- help us turn this into an interesting discussion!

Do I really need a dentist's prescription to get a mouthpiece?

Add your comments!

Take pity on your long-suffering sleeping partner...Beneficial Products manufactures ear plugs with high noise reduction (NRR 34).  Order Here

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