Symptoms of sleep apnea include loud snoring and daytime sleepiness or fatigue. It’s important to visit your doctor if you think you have sleep apnea, as it may raise your risk for heart and circulatory problems like high blood pressure, stroke, or diabetes.

In people with Sleep Apnea, breathing pauses or becomes shallow for several seconds at a time hundreds of times per night, usually due to the throat muscles collapsing. These pauses (called apneic events) disrupt the normal flow of oxygen to the brain and heart. In addition, they prevent deep, restorative sleep. When the brain notices a lack of oxygen, it triggers a survival reflex that briefly wakes you up enough to start breathing again. These episodes cause you to lose energy and can leave you feeling confused, irritable, or unable to focus.

Sleep Apnea: How Dentists Can Help You Breathe Better

The good news is, sleep apnea can often be corrected with lifestyle changes, mouthpieces or surgery. Most commonly, doctors recommend using a machine that blows air through tubing into a mask worn over the nose or mouth during sleep. This device holds the throat open so that you can breathe normally, preventing the collapse and recurrent breathing pauses of obstructive sleep apnea.

Other treatment options include removing enlarged tonsils or adenoids, weight loss surgery, and taking certain medications. For very severe cases, a surgeon can create a new opening into the neck to make it easier to breathe, which is called a tracheostomy. However, this is usually only used for patients with life-threatening symptoms and is not available in many hospitals.