Sleep apnea is a condition that goes widely undiagnosed. For many, the symptoms of sleep apnea are so common that they do not spark a large amount of worry or concern that requires medical attention. Instead, most sleep apneics simply live with or ignore the symptoms of the condition, but in the long run, this leads to all sorts of problems. Not only does the condition drain the body of much needed oxygen various times throughout the night, it can also cause moodiness, morning headaches, and sleep deprivation.
Sleep deprivation is a common for most people today. Recent studies have shown that at least 43% of adults suffer from sleep deprivation. While sleep apnea and sleep deprivation are not always linked, it is very common that a sleep apneic will suffer from sleep deprivation because of untreated sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea causes sleep deprivation because of the interruptions in the normal sleeping patterns that it creates when the sleep apneic stops breathing. When the apneic stops breathing, eventually the brain realizes it is in trouble and wakes up the individual just long enough for them to realize they need to breathe. This can happen hundreds of time every night. It’s no wonder why some sleep apnea sufferers wake up in the morning feel as though they never went to sleep.
Sleep is an important part of healthy living! Sleep deprivation has a variety of consequences that can effect you in all stages of your day and your life as a whole. Don’t let sleep apnea keep you from the sleep you need at night. Contact Dr. Berry’s office today to schedule an appointment to discuss sleep apnea and the treatment methods available to you.
If you have been diagnosed with sleep apnea, you surely know about the CPAP and you may even have personal experience using the machine. Insurance companies readily cover the CPAP machine because it has proven to be a very effective treatment method that is dependable for a safe night’s sleep.
Dr. Berry has found that while some patients do okay using CPAP to treat their sleep apnea, others simply do not experience much success, either due to discomfort of wearing the mask, the noise of the machine when a higher pressure setting is required, or for a variety (and often a combination) of other complaints. Because of these issues, many patients will opt to not use their CPAP. Some will look for CPAP alternatives, while others simply stop treatment. If you find that the CPAP is not the sleep apnea treatment for you, be aware that there are CPAP alternatives, and foregoing sleep apnea treatment is never a good idea because of the terrible stress it puts on your organs. Sleep apnea claims the lives of people every day, such as Rep. Robert Donatucci last fall, and countless others whose deaths are attributed to heart attacks or strokes that were probably due, at least in part, to sleep apnea.
Provent, oral appliance therapy, and other treatment options are all alternatives to using CPAP. Provent, one of the newest alternative sleep apnea treatments that is still in clinical trials, makes use of the patient’s own breathing pressure to avoid a collapsing, narrowing, or obstruction of the airway. Studies have proven the device to be very useful and Provent makers, Ventus, hope to have the device covered by medical insurance in the near future. The purpose of any and all of these devices, including oral appliance therapy, is to simply provide for another way to ensure all sleep apneics are able to find a sleep apnea treatment method that works for them.
Have you been prescribed CPAP in the past only to find that you do not fare well with it? Do you avoid using your CPAP because of the discomfort or noise that it causes? If so come to Dr. Berry, a trusted and experienced sleep apnea dentist who can provide you with a CPAP alternative. Don’t neglect treating your sleep apnea because you are CPAP-intolerant. There are other methods that will keep you sleeping soundly at night! Call our Denver office today at 303.759.5652 or schedule a consultation online.
On a routine basis, people all over the world undergo various different types of cosmetic procedures to improve their looks. Often times these procedures promise to improve upon a problem area when the patient is unsatisfied with his/her looks. While the types of cosmetic procedures available today are almost innumerable, one highly popular procedure in the dental world is porcelain veneers.
Patients that opt to undergo cosmetic dentistry procedures such as porcelain veneers usually do so because they are not completely happy with how their smile looks. No matter if it’s due to discoloration, cracks, an uneven smile or missing teeth, cosmetic dentistry can be used to solve these problems. For some patients it’s one thing to be internally unhappy with your smile, but would you ever upgrade your smile to increase your chances of being hired?
While there are no definitive statistics showing that having a flawless smile will land you your dream job, studies have shown that more job seekers are undergoing procedures such as dental veneers in order to improve their smile in hopes of raising their chances of being hired. For some spending thousands of dollars for a better smile is well worth it, but in the end no matter if you have a perfect celebrity smile or one that is mediocre, there is no saying whether or not you are guaranteed to be hired.
Interested in porcelain veneers or some other cosmetic procedure to improve your smile? If so Dr. Berry is your go-to Denver dentist. After a few appointments you can leave our office with a flawless smile that you love to show off. Contact us today for more info or book your appointment online.
Countless studies and discussions have taken place regarding the idea of a possible link between certain emotional disorders and sleep apnea. Conditions such as depression, anxiety, and others are seen in some sleep apnea patients, but there is no say as to whether or not one causes the other. Since some patients may experience mood swings and other emotional problems while suffering from sleep apnea, many have come to believe that there is a connection between the two. The interruptions in sleep that occur when one has sleep apnea may also be related to the brain functions and activities that control our moods and feelings.
While the brain’s overall structure most explains how we all have unique views of the world, conditions such as mood swings, anxiety, and depression all play a role in these views as well. When a sleep apneic has not gotten the needed treatment, he/she may not be able to see life in the most positive light. Of course this may not be true for all pre-treatment sleep apneics, but those who are suffering from certain mood and emotional disorders are sure to experience the affects of them.
Don’t let sleep apnea ruin your emotional stability and happiness. If you suffer from sleep apnea along with depression, severe mood swings, anxiety, or some other mood disorder, contact Dr. Berry’s dental office to get treatment for sleep apnea. While there is no guarantee that treatment will cure your emotional troubles, it will at least be able to treat an otherwise deadly condition.
The price of porcelain veneers isn’t set city-wide and rarely do we find that two patients end up with the same total cost. The fact is that the price of porcelain veneers depends on a lot of different factors. For one, the number of porcelain veneers you require will determine a good portion of the total cost of the procedure. Porcelain dental veneers are usually priced per veneer so the more you need, the higher your cost will be. Any type of pre-procedure treatment you require such as teeth whitening will also raise the bill amount, as will oral sedation (should you choose to go that route).
While there is no saying how much your overall porcelain veneers procedure will cost without scheduling a consultation, history has shown that the number one reason patients often decide to skip having porcelain veneers is the cost of the procedure. Average costs range between $900-$1,500 per porcelain veneer, and some patients don’t have the means to pay such a hefty price all at once.
Since porcelain veneers are deemed to be a strictly cosmetic procedure by the dental insurance companies, it is rare that your insurance company will pay for it (or even a portion of it). This means that as a patient you are expected to pay the entire cost of the procedure. However, Dr. Berry likes to help any and every patient that walks through his office be able to afford the life-transforming cosmetic dentistry that they need. Through Care Credit (Apply Now), we offer various plans that make financing porcelain veneers a possible option.
If you’re interested in learning more about porcelain veneers and what the procedure would cost given the unique challenges of your smile, book an appointment now to speak with Dr. Berry.
Do you suffer from conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes? Do you have sleep apnea or telltale symptoms of it such as chronic snoring? If so, your current health problems may be connected to your snoring and/or sleep apnea. While we know that the two conditions can lead to other problems within the body, recent studies have shown that both snoring and sleep apnea increase the risk of metabolic syndrome, and that the resulting health conditions may worsen over time, especially if the snoring and sleep apnea go untreated.
Metabolic syndrome involves a wide range of conditions including hypertension, heart disease, excess abdominal fat, stroke and others. If a patient is diagnosed with 3 of the 5 main conditions, doctors may also diagnose the patient with metabolic syndrome.
Studies conducted on those patients who have metabolic syndrome have proven that the syndrome, snoring, and sleep apnea may all be connected. Patients who suffer from metabolic syndrome are more likely to wake up feeling unrested which may be linked to sleep apnea and/or a snoring problem, and because a sleep apnea patient’s organs are regularly deprived of oxygen while they sleep, this only worsens their metabolic diseases. See this article about the study.
It’s never wise to ignore excessive snoring or the symptoms of sleep apnea. Without treatment these conditions won’t disappear and you’d only be doing more damage to your body. Come to Dr. Berry for a consultation (book your consult here) to walk about snoring and sleep apnea. If positively diagnosed, you can count on Dr. Berry for sleep apnea treatment that will help you sleep more restfully at night. Don’t let a treatable condition cause other potentially fatal problems within your body.
Obesity is not a problem unique to today’s society. William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States of America, weighed over 300lbs at one point in his life. Historians suspect that he had severe obstructive sleep apnea until he dropped about 80lbs after leaving office.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) diagnoses have been on the rise in recent years. Though obstructive sleep apnea can be caused by many different factors such as soft tissue problems, poor sleeping position, and others, many sleep apnea doctors and dentists believe that the increased number of obese people in America may also be an explanation as to why sleep apnea diagnoses have been increasing. When it comes to OSA, obesity is a factor because of the excess weight that the patient is carrying, specifically in fat deposits in the neck and throat area.
When the fat deposits in the throat put pressure on the airway, it can collapse, causing the patient to stop breathing. This can occur hundreds of times a night. The problem is that most patients aren’t aware that they have sleep apnea therefore the condition can go untreated for years! However it’s been proven that untreated sleep apnea can cause all sorts of problems which may lead to death.
If you have been diagnosed with OSA, you may want to consider coming to a sleep apnea dentist to learn about the sleep apnea treatment that is available to you as a potential alternative to CPAP. If you are obese and suffering from OSA, weight-loss will be an important component of your sleep apnea treatment. For some of our patients, diet and exercise alone works, but for others a more aggressive weight loss strategy, such as bariatric surgery, is needed. Remember that surgery is invasive, and in the case of some bariatric surgeries, is irreversible. Bariatric surgery should be the last option if all others have failed. Having said that, there is no question that bariatric surgery has saved lives. With surgery patients almost always lose the weight they need to, which often means that their obstructive sleep apnea is cured or at least becomes less severe.
Some Important Notes About Obesity, Weightloss, And Sleep Apnea
It is critical to understand that sleep apnea is not a disease that occurs only in obese individuals. A 90 pound marathon runner can have sleep apnea. There are multiple types of sleep apnea and multiple physiologic factors that contribute to problems with obstructive sleep apnea. Therefore, bariatric surgery isn’t a cure for sleep apnea, but it can certainly be part of an effective sleep apnea treatment strategy for some patients. Another important point is that during the period of time when a patient is trying to lose weight, it is critical that the patient treat his/her sleep apnea. You will have a terrible time trying to lose weight if you’re not getting good, restorative sleep each night. With an oral sleep apnea appliance, you can comfortably treat your sleep apnea while you lose the pounds and then, when you’ve lost a significant amount of weight, you can do another sleep study to see if your obstructive sleep apnea has resolved as a result of losing weight.
On its own, sleep apnea is a very serious condition that causes patients to stop breathing hundreds of times during the night. This means that the internal organs are deprived of oxygen from anywhere between 10-30 seconds. Though this may not seem like much, multiply those numbers by 100, if not more, and soon enough in a single night the body can be deprived of oxygen for numerous minutes. With sleep apnea the problem comes when the patient has symptoms and doesn’t recognize them. Anyone can wake up feeling not well rested or with a headache. Because some of the symptoms are so common, many people suffering from the condition rarely seek medical attention.
While sleep apnea has well-known symptoms that are often times ignorable, one symptom that has recently been linked to the condition is sleepwalking. Studies have shown that somnambulism may be a sign of a sleep apneic. This is one symptom that is highly noticeable and one that should be examined and diagnosed ASAP.
Though it may seem a bit hard to believe, with sleep apnea not only is the breathing pattern interrupted, but also the sleep pattern. When the sleep pattern is interrupted, in this case by a lack of oxygen, this sudden change can lead to parasomnic effects on the brain which includes sleepwalking.
Experiencing a mixture of common sleep apnea symptoms along with sleepwalking is highly indicative of a diagnosis of sleep apnea, but you have to be tested for sleep apnea to be sure. It’s important to consult a sleep apnea dentist if you are suffering from nightly sleepwalking episodes. Sleepwalking takes place unconsciously therefore the sleepwalker will never catch him/herself in the act or have any remembrance of it. Those sleeping in the same household may catch the sleepwalker or the sleepwalker may realize that items have been moved, are gone, and may consider sleepwalking to be the root of the cause.
As the rate of obesity in Americans continues to rise, it is no surprise that the health risks that go along with it are also on the up. Some call it an epidemic while others say it’s merely personal choice, but in the end the fact is that Americans are becoming unhealthier on a daily basis due to the food choices we have. One of the main factors is the fact that the most convenient food choices we have are extremely high in fat, calories, and carbohydrates. It’s rare that you find something most would consider healthy at a fast food restaurant. But because these places are so convenient and easy, nutrition seems to fly out the window.
In order to bring more awareness to the growing obesity problem throughout the U.S. many cities and states have taken steps to persuade more people to eat healthier. In San Francisco, the city passed a bill banning Happy Meals, an all-time favorite of many children. The bill calls for McDonalds restaurants In San Francisco to only offer toys with meals for children that are below 600 calories, have less fat, and come with both fruits and vegetables.
Though some people support the bill while others are highly against it, the bill itself is bringing more attention to the importance of a healthy diet and how high fat diets that lead to weight gain can cause all sorts of problems such as obesity related sleep apnea. With a growing awareness of the effects of obesity more people will know about the various health conditions that being overweight can cause. Treatment for sleep apnea should always include weight loss in cases where the patient is obese.
It’s also critical to note that sleep apnea is NOT just a disease of the obese. People of normal weight, even athletes, can have sleep apnea. Obesity is just a contributing factor.
Recently, an audience member asked Dr. Oz about the difference between heavy snoring and sleep apnea. Here’s the video:
According to Dr. Oz, weight loss is the first line of defense against sleep apnea. Although weight loss is a great idea it takes time to accomplish, Sleep Apnea is a LIFE Threatening disease. You need to treat sleep apnea ASAP with either a CPAP, an Oral Appliance, and or a combination of both. People that find themselves unable to wear a CPAP will find an Oral Appliance is and Excellent FDA approve alternative. Please feel free to contact our office for more information.
