Why people snore and what should be done to prevent it
Snoring happens due to the abnormal narrowing of the upper airway. If the upper airway is not adequate or collapses during sleep, the surrounding tissue flickers or vibrates, thereby causing snoring.
If breathing is interrupted during sleep, it causes the cessation of respiration and sleep apnea. Snoring, along with sleep apnea, is a chronic and serious problem affecting two to four per cent of the population. Treatment options include positive pressure masks and ventilation by CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machines.
The best treatment for sleep apnea is CPAP but, unfortunately, patients’ tolerance of these machines is very poor. In non-compliant or failure cases, curative treatment is offered by sleep apnea surgeries.
If you have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and you are considering treatment options, the key to a successful outcome is proper diagnosis to address the specific sites and levels of airway obstruction. In many patients, it is not possible to completely evaluate all of the anatomic areas responsible for airway narrowing, vibration (snoring), or complete obstruction (apnea) while they are awake. Narrowing may be due to a static part or collapsible parts in the upper airway. In the throat, there are four major collapsible areas that can be responsible: like pharyngeal wall, tongue, palate and epiglottis.
While an overnight sleep study is important to identify the problem, drug-induced sleep endoscopy can be extremely insightful in precisely pinpointing the site of obstruction. With a thin, flexible camera inserted through the nose, we are able to examine the entire upper airway and visualise the specific sites of obstruction — taking out the guess work.
The information obtained will help determine which specific structures seem to be playing a major role in airway obstruction and which treatment option would have optimal success. After locating the area responsible for narrowing while sleeping (thereby causing sleep apnea), the curative treatment can be offered.
Interventions related to sleep apnea are minimally invasive and endoscopic in approach. Most of these interventions are day care and mainly done through natural orifices like nose or mouth. These procedures done without external skin incisions and suturing offer the advantages of no bleeding, no external scar, less pain and fast recovery.
In these techniques, powerful cameras are inserted through natural orifice besides instrumentation for therapeutic purpose. The narrowing inside is observed on monitors while interventions are handled accordingly.