Sleep apnea can have a dramatic impact on your overall quality of life, but you may suffer with it for years before you’re ever diagnosed. When you have obstructive sleep apnea, your breathing becomes shallow or pauses altogether while you sleep. This jolts your body out of deep sleep, but most people have no recollection of this occurring—even if it happens dozens of times throughout the night. Treating sleep apnea is important, but in order to treat it, you must first know the signs to look for.
Signs of Sleep Apnea
The most obvious sign of sleep apnea is snoring and pauses in breathing during sleep, but unless someone else observes these symptoms while you’re asleep, you’re unlikely to notice them yourself. You may, however, notice that you wake up gasping for air or feeling like you’re choking. This occurs because when you sleep, the soft tissues in your airway become relaxed and block the flow of oxygen.
Here are some other signs of sleep apnea that you should be aware of:
- A sore throat when you wake up
- Morning headaches
- A persistent feeling of exhaustion and sleepiness, even with eight or more hours of sleep
- Trouble focusing
- Mood disorders, including depression and anxiety
- Difficulties with school or work
If you’re experiencing any combination of these symptoms, you may need a sleep study to determine if you have obstructive sleep apnea.
Consequences of Untreated Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea makes it difficult for patients to live their lives to the fullest. Getting eight hours of restorative sleep each night is important for our overall well-being. Without it, you feel lethargic and irritable; you may struggle to concentrate at work and find your performance slipping. The sleep deprivation caused by obstructive sleep apnea even puts you at a higher risk of a car accident.
There are long-term health consequences of sleep apnea as well. Increased risk of heart attacks, type 2 diabetes, and strokes are all associated with sleep apnea. It’s also believed that sleep apnea increases blood pressure and the level of stress hormones in the body. It’s no wonder why patients with sleep apnea feel so lousy all the time!
Best Sleep Apnea Treatment
The good news is that there are effective treatments available for sleep apnea. Although you’ve likely heard of CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machines, dentists have another sleep apnea treatment available that many patients find more comfortable and less cumbersome to wear every night—oral appliance therapy.
Oral appliance therapy is similar to a mouthguard or night guard, but its purpose is to engage the muscles in your airway to keep the soft tissues from relaxing and blocking your breathing. These oral appliances are easy to wear and keep clean, and they’re also much easier to bring with you when you travel than a CPAP machine. If you have only mild to moderate sleep apnea, we recommend oral appliance therapy before CPAP therapy.
Learn More About Sleep Apnea
Do you think you might have sleep apnea? Have you been diagnosed already, but you find sleeping with a CPAP machine uncomfortable? Contact us today at 949-916-7800 to schedule an appointment for a consultation.
The temporomandibular joints, or TMJ, perform the important function of connecting each side of your jaw to your skull. You might not think about these joints very often, if at all, but you use them frequently—when you eat, yawn, talk, or simply shift the position of your jaw a bit, your TMJ act as sliding hinges to allow these movements. Given how often you use them, it’s easy to see how dysfunction in these joints can cause a great deal of discomfort.
Defining TMJ
First, it’s important to clarify that TMJ is shorthand for the temporomandibular joints. Everyone has TMJ, but not everyone has TMJ disorder—this is the term used to describe dysfunction in these joints. To make things even more confusing, TMJ disorder is often referred to as TMD.
TMJ disorder can be placed into one of three categories. These include:
- Myofascial pain – This is pain that originates in the muscles surrounding the TMJ, rather than the joints themselves. Teeth grinding and jaw clenching are common causes.
- Internal derangement of the joint – Derangement can be caused by an injury to the condyle, a dislocated jaw, or a displaced disc.
- Arthritis – We’re all familiar with how arthritis attacks joints in the knees and wrists, but it can also affect the temporomandibular joints.
Symptoms of TMJ Disorder
TMJ disorder can be difficult to diagnose because it shares symptoms with a number of other conditions. A patient may suffer from chronic headaches for years before realizing that these headaches originate in the TMJ. Some signs that you might have TMD include:
- Headaches and migraines
- Facial tenderness, especially around the jaw and cheeks
- Earaches or feelings of fullness in the ears
- Tightness in the jaw
- Popping and clicking when eating or opening your mouth
- Locking of the jaw
- Pain when eating
Causes of TMJ Disorder
Treatment for TMJ disorder begins by determining the underlying cause. If, for example, your TMD is caused by arthritis, we will work in collaboration with your rheumatologist to help alleviate your symptoms and treat the root cause of your pain.
TMJ disorders caused by injury often require a different approach than TMD that involves myofascial pain, which is the most common type of TMD. When TMJ pain comes from the muscles surrounding the joints, it’s often because of a teeth grinding or jaw clenching habit, also known as bruxism. Bruxism usually occurs during sleep, so many patients don’t even realize they’re grinding their teeth or clenching their jaws, but Dr. Patel can look at your teeth and identify signs of these habits.
Bruxism and the TMJ pain associated with it can be treated with a custom nightguard, which has the dual purpose of relieving pressure on the temporomandibular joints and physically preventing you from grinding your teeth.
Learn More About TMJ Disorder Treatment
If you suspect you have temporomandibular joint disorder and would like to meet with Dr. Patel for a consultation, contact us today at 949-916-7800 to schedule an appointment at Aliso Smiles.