Are You Snoring?

Are you snoring? The irony of snoring is that you may not be even aware of your habit of snoring. While snoring may not be an indicator of a major disease in you, it may affect your health in the long run. However, the immediate effect of your habit of snoring is that it not only affects your sound sleep, but also disturbs your spouse, besides disturbing other people who are sleeping in the immediate vicinity.

Snoring is a common sign, causing sleeping disorder, affecting about 60 % men and 40 % of women of over 30 years of age. When you attain the age of above 40 or when you cross 60, snoring enters in your life causing much embarrassment. Sometimes, snoring is annoying, leading to arguments besides causing injuries to your health. Sometimes, even children have the habit of snoring due to some specific reasons.

Indications of Snoring

Snoring is a loud, hoarse and horse breathing sound that occurs during sleep.It is caused by the vibrations of soft tissues located at the back of your throats causing noisy and annoying sounds. The palate, Uvula and tonsils are the tissue structures that flap against each other when someone has too much tissue at the back of their mouth or when an obstruction is blocking the air passageway to the back of the throat. Snoring is a symptom of a more serious issue.

It is equally shocking to know that according to Guinness Book of World Records the world’s loudest snorer has reached 93 decibels or about the same as an 18 wheeler blasting through your bed room, every 10 seconds.

Generally more than 20 % people have snoring problems. Males and obese peoples have more problems with snoring. Middle aged or older men are more prone to snore than women. People with Asthma, cold allergies or sinus infections are more prone to having snoring problems; similarly people who are self-smokers, heavy alcohol drinkers and taking medications that can make you sleepy or drowsy may have the problem of snoring; people who are obese may have the problem of snoring.

Snoring tends to be louder, when a person sleeps on their back.

Possible Conditions that may Cause Snoring

You may have the problem of snoring if you have the following conditions in you,

1. Poor muscle tone in the tongue and throat;
2. Excessive bulkiness of throat tissue;
3. Long soft palate and uvula in the back of the mouth;
4. Obstructed nasal airways;
5. Snoring can be a serious medical problem because it disturbs sleeping patterns and deprives the snorer of necessary tests;

Potential Causes of Snoring

Snoring may occur due to the following causes:

1. You may be snoring as a sign of sleeping disorder known as sleeping apnea;
2. When you are overweight, it may lead to excessive neck tissue that puts pressure on the airways;
3. When you are in the last month of your pregnancy, you may have snoring;
4. When you have swelling in the muscular part of the roof of the mouth (soft palate) or Uvula, the piece of tissue that hangs down in the back of the mouth;
5. When you have swollen adenoids and tonsils that block the airways;
6. When you are in the habit of using sleeping pills, antihistamines or alcohol before going to bed.

Effects of Snoring:

Though snoring may be your personal problem, the effects that it causes on your personal life, on your spouse and on the third parties are simply devastating.

Generally snoring has been a source of strained marriages, dangerous health problems and at times it may even lead you to death.

1. Personally snoring disturbs your deepest levels of sleep. In the result you walk around throughout the day in a constant sleep deprived state that lowers your energy besides straining your health overtime. You become irritable, anxious and unease.
2. When you are snoring while you are sleeping, it disrupts the sleep of            those around you. Hence it affects the relationship with your spouse as well as with third parties. Either you or your partner begins to sleep in another room. Otherwise, neither of you gets any sleep. In the result, it creates bad feelings and becomes a contributing factor for a divorce with your spouse. In a study undertaken on the bad effects of snoring, wives lose an average of 62 minutes of sleep per day or 384 hours of sleep in a year.
3. Sometimes, children may have chronic snoring habits and they should be evaluated for apnea. If the children with chronic snoring are diagnosed with apnea, they may have growth problems, ADHD, poor school performance, learning difficulties, bed wetting and high blood pressure.
4. When you or your children having chronic snoring habit are diagnosed with ‘sleep apnea’, you are suffering from a chronic sleeping disorder which repeatedly stops breathing during the night which means causing ‘no breath’ up to 10 seconds, 100s of times during a night.
5. When you have apnea, there is a drop in your blood oxygen level, increase in heart rate, burst of stress hormones and disrupted sleep. Besides, you have loud chronic snoring, coupled with choking or gasping during your sleep, excessive daytime sleepiness, morning headaches, memory or learning problems, feeling irritable, poor concentration, changes in mood and depression and dry throat or mouth upon awakening.
6. If you are evaluated with apnea, you may have stroke, coronary heart disease, heart failure, irregular heart beat, heart attack, high blood pressure, heartburn and reflex, diabetes, erectile dysfunction, depression and sudden death etc.

Treatment for Snoring

1. If your chronic snoring habit is not evaluated as a sign of sleep apnea, then you may have to take the following steps to eliminate snoring habit from you:
2. You have to regulate your sleeping habit. You have to go to sleep regularly at a fixed time and sleep for not less than 7.5 hours per night. It will make you systematic and help to avoid the severity in your snoring habit.
3. If you are over weight, take concrete steps for losing your weight like dieting and exercise.
4. You should avoid taking alcohol a few hours before going to bed and make it a habit.
5. You should avoid sleeping on your back and sleep keeping your body in a side wards position. In order to avoid the habit of sleeping on your back, doctors even suggest having a tennis ball on your back so that you will be forced to avoid sleeping on your back.
6. When you go to sleep elevate the position of your head by having a pillow in order to avoid snoring.
7. You should get treatment for your allergies, if any, in order to avoid the habit of snoring.Perhaps those allergies might have played a part in causing a snoring habit in you.
8. You should quit or avoid smoking, besides avoiding second hand smoke from smoking and congested places like a bar or a club.
9. You should take conscious steps to improve your fitness level.
10. Buy a mouth guard so as to prevent you from snoring.

Apart from taking the above steps to get rid of your snoring habits, still you are not able to get reduced from its severity, there are as many as 300 artificial devices in the US alone that may help you to prevent your snoring habits.In addition to that under the medical advice and supervision of a doctor, the following treatment options are available.

You can use a dental appliance to protrude your lower jaw so as to prevent your tongue falling back.

Palatoplasty is a method of shifting of your palate through surgery or injection.

In order to get relieved from the sleeping apnea, you may resort to CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) as the primary treatment therapy.This therapy works to keep the upper airway open by providing a constant flow of air delivered through a face mask worn while sleeping. Once advised by a doctor, you should learn to use the device CPAP methodically and systematically, under the supervision of a doctor. By using CPAP you can decrease snoring and sleep apnea.

Surgery is another method to get yourself cured from snoring which may cost as much as $ 5,000 that helps to correct your deviated septum. If any complication develops in the surgery, it may involve an additional expenditure of $ 5,000.

However, before embarking upon a costly surgery, it is always advisable to resort to alternate ways and methods of getting cured from snoring; surgery should be resorted to as an option only under extreme and unavoidable circumstances and cases of sleeping apnea.