What is sleep apnea?

The form of sleep apnea that affects most people is called obstructive sleep apnea, a condition in which the soft tissues in the back of your throat collapse while you sleep, blocking off your airway.

This blockage cuts off your brain’s supply of oxygen, which causes it to rouse you to clear your airway again. The problem is that this same cycle can happen over and over, sometimes dozens of times every hour, preventing you (and your bedmate) from getting the restorative sleep you need.

On top of missed sleep, sleep apnea is tied to some severe health complications, including:

  • Diabetes
  • Heart disease
  • Mood and memory issues

The bottom line is that sleep apnea is far more than a snoring problem and requires expert diagnosis and treatment.

How is sleep apnea diagnosed?

The team at TMJ & Sleep Therapy Centre of Utah has extensive experience diagnosing and treating sleep apnea, which typically starts with a take-home sleep study kit. This portable monitor records certain aspects of your sleep and all the details about the disruptions in your sleep.

When you return the monitor, your provider at TMJ & Sleep Therapy Centre of Utah analyzes the data to determine if you’re suffering from sleep apnea.

If they find evidence of sleep apnea, the team at TMJ & Sleep Therapy Centre of Utah uses the SICAT® system, which is a 3D dental system that creates an accurate, digital replica of your upper airway. Then, using CEREC® cone beam technology, the team creates a 3D model of your mouth, throat, upper airway, and all other supporting systems. By using these advanced imaging technologies, the team can better visualize any obstructions or constrictions in your airway that may be causing your sleep apnea.

Sleep Apnea Treatment explained by Dr. Cheyn Gunnerson

Sleep Apnea Treatment by Dr. Cheyn Gunnerson
Sleep Apnea is a common problem for many adults and even some children. Doctor Gunnerson uses his personal Sleep Apnea experience to help his patients and other individuals in the community get the sleep they deserve. Sleep Apnea has been known to contribute to many more serious illnesses such as; depression, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, weight gain, acid reflux and anxiety. Over 50% of the population has undiagnosed sleep apnea, and of those who have been diagnosed, 50% can't tolerate their CPAP machines. We offer a new, innovative, custom made, oral appliance that will give you that good nights sleep you deserve.

Hi, I’m doctor Gunnerson with Gunnerson dental. Early on in my career, I learned how important sleep is to the overall health of an individual, but it really hit home, when I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea. To me, being a dentist isn’t about just addressing and treating oral disease, but viewing the body as a whole. And this all starts with getting the rest we need to help the body heal and rejuvenate. Through my years of practice, I’ve attended many continuing education courses to keep up to date on how dentistry can help people get a better night’s sleep. I was one of the first to introduce digital dentistry in conjunction with the use of digital imaging, to aid in diagnosing and treating Sleep Apnea in Utah. By combining these two technologies at Gunnerson Dental, we are able to aid in the treatment of patients who have been diagnosed with mild to moderate Sleep Apnea. We use digital imaging to scan for airway issues which aids in the diagnosis of Sleep Apnea. We also use digital dentistry to create 3D models and images to design an appliance which can help reduce the amount of your airway obstruction.

We offer take home sleep study to our patients that exhibit symptoms of Sleep Apnea. We believe that to get the most accurate results, a patient should be at home in their bed going to sleep at their bedtime. Many of our patients who have taken a home sleep study have opted to have an appliance made to help them. They have noticed a significant change in better sleep and a decrease in daytime sleepiness. Our goal isn’t to just help you get a better sleep, but to help you have a better overall health. Sleep Apnea and the lack of adequate sleep has been found to increase your risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, depression, anxiety, and weight gain, to name just a few. My desires to help you have a healthier life. When I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea, I was tired, I was worn out. I’d go home from work and fall asleep on the couch exhausted. Since treating my Sleep Apnea with their oil appliance, I have more energy. I’m spending more time with my family. I’m more focused at work. I have a more positive outlook on life. Life is too short and kids grow up too fast. At Gunnersen dental it isn’t just about your oral health, but about you and your family. We want you to have a healthy, happy life.


How is sleep apnea treated?

With the information the team gathers using advanced imaging, they create a personalized treatment plan that’s based on the precise cause of your sleep apnea. One of the best ways to treat sleep apnea is through an oral appliance that prevents the soft tissues in the back of your throat from collapsing. 


TMJ & Sleep Therapy Centre of Utah Offer 1

TMJ & Sleep Therapy Centre of Utah Offer 2

TMJ & Sleep Therapy Centre of Utah Offer 3

Because your oral appliance is created from the digital replica of your oral structure, the device fits comfortably in your mouth for overnight wear, allowing you to get a good night’s sleep. 

Another great advantage of this sleep apnea solution is that the oral appliance is far cheaper than alternative treatments like a CPAP machine.

Q&A session with Dr. Gunnerson regarding Sleep Apnea


Tackle sleep apnea and improve your overall health.

Sleep Apnea Q&A Episode 1
On this Facebook Live session, Dr. Gunnerson discusses how sleep apnea is treated, what a sleep study does, kids’ sleep apnea, and the different devices used - SomnoMed and OptiSleep. He displays some samples for the audience to get a better idea and tackles questions sent by audience members. Call 801-658-0102 for your consultation with Dr. Gunnerson if you believe you have sleep apnea.

Hi I’m Doctor Gunnersen with Gunnersen dental and thank you again for joining me on another live Facebook. This is I think our third one that we’ve done and it’s been a lot of fun I like doing these and again thank you for joining me because there’s always a lot of information then sometimes people forget to ask the question when they’re here in the office or, or, have questions that that pop up in their heads about dental care and I’m happy to answer that anytime that I’m on a Facebook, live so thanks for joining me thanks for being here and when you join if you have questions, go ahead and add those questions into the queue it’s always fun to answer questions and right off the top my head. I do have some questions that some people have submitted and we chose to, to, do a another seminar on or another Facebook live on Sleep Apnea and the type of appliances that we use, people had interest in in wondering what type of appliances are used through my office and how exactly do we treat the Sleep Apnea. So, I thought I’d spend a few minutes showing you those appliances again if you have questions, go ahead and submit those questions, I’m happy to answer those. The reason why we brought it up is, is, that we did get some questions later on, on, some of our Facebook lives and we did get I’ve had questions come up in the office and one of those questions was to tell you more about the devices. So, I brought what we have in our devices here with me and so I like to show you those devices that we that we use. I actually work through two different companies and the reason why I do that is because some insurances require us if we do end up billing it to your medical insurance require us to use a specific company or a specific device and there’s one company that makes those devices that we use and that’s Somnimed and so we do use some of the Somnimed devices in our office especially if we’re billing to Medicare. Medicare requires a specific device be used. Now my favourite though is called the Opti sleep. I work through a company called up to sleep and sometimes people ask me you know when we’re talking about treating Sleep Apnea in in my office, I’m not charging you for the I, I, mean I do charge you for the, the, device, but when we’re when we’re talking about what, what, it is in treating Sleep Apnea, it’s not just the cost of the device, it’s the cost of treating the Sleep Apnea. So, I want to make sure that it’s, it’s, a whole process. It’s multiple visits that you get to come in additional sleep studies that we do to follow up because we want to make sure that this investment for you is going to work well and that you’re being well taken care of in our office. So that’s just all included in what we do. So, the first one I have here this is called is the Optisleep. It comes in a really nice container that you can keep at home, when you’re not wearing the device and this is exactly the one that I that I use and that I have. This is what it looks like it’s, it’s, it looks like a fairly simple device. It’s machine manufactured and so and we use a when we’re manufacturing these or taking the impressions, we actually use a for any of our devices and all of our devices we use a laser scanner to actually scan your teeth to get a very, very, pristine accurate impression of what your dentition is, because we want this to fit and function well for you. Now this one again I like it because it’s clear we have these right here we have these we have these interchangeable, you never know where to put these things up or down but on here we have these interchangeable bands that we’re able to change out to fit you specifically like I said in the treatment of Sleep Apnea, we have you in we have you set at a certain portion here that’s supposed to keep you from snoring, but we want to make sure that your Sleep Apnea is also being treated. So we’ll see you back a few times making sure as always that this is fitting comfortably and that the adjustments are working well for you in in treating your Sleep Apnea. Once it is fitted well and is functioning well, we’ll send you home with a sleep study to see how that is working for you and make sure that we’re treating the Sleep Apnea, and in most cases it is, in fact in all cases that we’ve done so far we’ve been able to drop people down in in what we call the ahi index which end in the number of episodes of Sleep Apnea that you’ve had at night we’ve been able to drop it down really, really, low. So, that’s just a really really neat thing that we’re able to do. This is my favourite this is the one that I wear and I wear it every night. It goes in I go to bed I sleep just fine with it it’s not uncomfortable. One of the things that we really look for when we’re doing these is that we want to make sure that the fit is fit well under your teeth holds in well and I did have a person who asked what is the you know how long does your device last and these are these are guaranteed for three years, for warranty through the company for three years this specific device and also if it ever breaks during that three year period, becomes loose, we want to make sure that it stays in nice and tight and if it ever becomes loose we want to know because we’ll rescan you they’ll replace a portion of whatever they need to do to make sure that’s always fitting well for you. That’s just one of the things that that company does. Now again we do work with this other company called Somnamed and in our office we’ve got a couple of these devices. This is this is one of them they do. It comes separately so you can you can put them in the top and bottom are are separate and and so you can try them both in at a different time make sure that they fit really well and then they have these little attachments here on the side that are fused into here and that’s what we use to advance your lower jaw slightly forward. It’s nice to see it’s on the model because you can see what we actually do in Sleep Apnea treatment, in order to keep that tongue from falling back in the back of your throat, we progress your jaw just a little bit forward. I know that there’s been some concerns from some people with TMJ that temporal mandibular joint syndrome, definitely screening is important when when it comes to getting one of these devices. We want to make sure that your jaw is comfortable we’re not over stretching it and so that’s why we have these adjustments in here. It allows us to reach a point where it’s functioning well for you without overextending your jaw or misaligning your teeth. The other one from Somnamed is this one here that we use. It has what we call a herb’s attachment to it again it’s adjustable this is the one that we do for those who are in the military and for those who are on Medicare. Because it is a solid piece you can’t lose any of the pieces nothing can come apart. It is all fused together so we use this one for for those types of individuals. So those are just some of the devices there are a few others that we use these are the ones that I have that samples in our office and so if you’re interested in having a consultation with me and talking about your Sleep Apnea and sleep disturbances you have at night, I’m I’m happy to to meet with you for a consultation. Sit down and talk about it and then of course we’ll go from there one of the first things that I like to do in the treatment of Sleep Apnea is to send you home with a sleep study because that’s going to give us a lot of results back that tell us what your sleep patterns are and and then that way we can see what is the best way to to treat your Sleep Apnea. I one of the questions Brent wrote to us was how long have I had my device. I have had my device, I believe two years now the one that I’m currently using. I’ve gone through multiple different devices the reason why is because I feel like anytime I’m going to treat a patient with with something new or something different, I am one to try that out and make sure that it’s going to work for me, before I have it I apply it for someone else to have them use it. Mark sent us the question, how does it affect my bite or does it affect my bite at all. You know in I wear mine every single night and initially when I wake up in the morning, yes, my teeth don’t align it’s because my muscles have gotten used to being in a different position. Because we are pulling your jaw forward I kind of showed you on on this one here because we are bringing your jaw a little bit forward while you’re sleeping at night and of course again like I said we don’t want to hyperextend that bring that too far forward then when you when you wake up in the morning your teeth are they feel a little bit odd because they don’t quite align like they used to. I give that about 15 minutes and I’m back right where I used to be so it really hasn’t in two years has not affected or changed my bite at all it hasn’t affected anything in my joint. I feel very comfortable like I said going to bed at night with it. It doesn’t wake me up at night wearing it it’s just nice and comfortable. Robert asked the question do I have to wear it every night? You know if you’re treating Sleep Apnea Sleep Apnea is something that’s happening to you every night. So, I highly recommend that you do wear it every night. Sometimes I’ll take a break but for the most part I wear it every night and when I take a break and I’m not wearing it I can definitely tell the difference in the morning that I have not worn my device that night. My energy level is definitely down and I I can’t focus as well the next day. So, I work really hard to to wear that every single night. Is there an age limit? You know when I when it comes to age limit we want to make sure that you have your complete adult dentition and you’re not going through any more growth in your in your facial structures. So, treating anybody under 18 is something that I don’t do with one of these devices. Now there are other mechanisms for treating children with Sleep Apnea and they have linked Sleep Apnea to kids that have a lot of kids who have attention deficit disorder, because it’s basically they’re not sleeping at night and in order to function during the day, their brain is trying to keep them awake and is jumping from thing to thing to thing to thing. There’s been studies done on this you can definitely look that up on the internet, which is great when you’ve got google now that you can look up almost anything but there are definitely a lot of studies have been done. I’ve been studying this since probably about 1998, 99, is when I really started getting into this this sleep information. So even back then they were talking about treating kids for Sleep Apnea. So, there are ways you can do that, so but there is a limit and of course because we’re, we’re, making these to custom fit, you can’t have any changes in in growth going on in your mouth. Taylor sent the question, can you wear the device and a CPAP? You can definitely wear the device and a CPAP in fact if they’re finding out that in order to address your obstructive Sleep Apnea and you’re currently wearing a CPAP machine that the volume of airflow that has to be done through the the CPAP machine if it has to be to such a point that it’s very difficult to breathe in the first place, then definitely we can work something with a conjunction in conjunction with your CPAP machine, wearing the device and wearing the CPAP and that way you’re getting some benefits of both of them, but those are my points on on talking about Sleep Apnea. Jessica sent me a question, does Sleep Apnea affect any other body systems you mentioned ADD are there other conditions that can be helped? Absolutely and that is really kind of my mission and was kind of spurred me to do this. I get a lot of patients who come in the office with pre-diabetes and they’re being monitored for that they are starting to have high blood pressure; they’re being monitored for that or being put on medications. You know I in one of our initial Facebook lives, I talked about all the different things that are affected all the different systems in your body that are affected by the fact that you’re not ever getting a good night’s rest, and the body has a unique ability to heal itself. I’m not saying that a person who is prone to to diabetes can can get rid of diabetes completely, but if there’s a way that we can help treat a lot of symptoms from different diseases, early heart diseases coronary artery disease and of course diabetes and I get some people in who are struggling with weight loss issues and weight loss certainly plays a point or can play a point in whether you have Sleep Apnea or not. It is not a definitive factor. People who do not have issues with weight can definitely have Sleep Apnea too but when it comes to needing to lose weight or wanting to lose weight, it can be very difficult because you’re not getting the sleep that you need. At night so your body’s not healing it’s not functioning properly and treating Sleep Apnea, if you’ve got that issue can really, really, help in going towards in being healthier and as far as weight loss goes to. So, I know I know that the body can heal itself. We have amazing systems in our body that monitor and check and heal, when we’re getting the proper rest that we need to get and when that’s disrupted and you’re waking up multiple times in the middle of the night, that is going to affect that healing process and so you know if, if, you’ve got this going on or if you have questions about her if you’re ever interested in doing a home sleep study, that we do and maybe that’s what I’ll talk about next time is the home sleep study we do and maybe talk about some results, I’ve gotten back just to show you what I can see from from home sleep study but if you’re ever interested come in and give us a call have a consultation. I want to help people as much as I can in overcoming problems in their life with their health and that’s why I do what I do. I I love to help people and so that’s just my heart going out to yours if, if, you’ve got something going on contact us. I’d love to help you out. It’s changed my life by using one of these devices and I know that if you’ve got issues it can change your life too. So, thanks again for joining me it looks like our time’s about up. If you have questions send us an email contact us through Facebook. We’d love to hear from you, you give us a call at our office our information is on our Facebook page. We’re here a lot of the time during the week and I’d love to help you out. So thanks again for joining me these have been a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to doing more whether I’m talking about the different crowns that we do here in our office, the way we do the crowns, just amazing technology that’s coming our way and again like I said I like to try things out of myself to make sure that they work before I just put them in a start using them for my patients. So, you know I I care about the people that I treat. I really do. So, thanks for joining me I appreciate it thanks again.


Dr. Cheyn Gunnerson answers all your questions on sleep apnea.

Sleep Apnea Q&A Episode 2
What is sleep apnea, the different types of apnea – obstructive and central, the signs and symptoms of the sleep disorder, its short- and long-term consequences, how the condition is diagnosed and treated, the benefits of oral appliances vs. CPAP machines; these are some of the questions tackled by Dr. Cheyn Gunnerson in this, his first live Q&A session.

I’m Doctor Gunnerson with Gunnerson Dental and I want to thank all of you who are joining me for this live Q and A session this is the actually the first time I’ve ever done a q a as far as dental is concerned and I’m excited to be here to answer any questions that people may have about Sleep Apnea, because that’s what we’re really here to talk about this evening is is Sleep Apnea. So if you’re joining us, welcome I’m glad to have you here and and I’m excited to talk to you about Sleep Apnea. So I have I have a question up here that is from Angela and the first question that I have is what is Sleep Apnea? Now Sleep Apnea is is when you actually stop breathing for a certain period of time and this occurs mostly at night. This is when you’re sleeping of course otherwise when we call Sleep Apnea, but it’s when we’re sleeping at night, it’s Sleep Apnea and it’s when we actually stop breathing and there are two basic mechanisms that occur when you stop sleeping. One is either through obstructive Sleep Apnea which is basically where your throat is closed off and you’re not getting any air and I’ve had patients who come in the office and have obstructive Sleep Apnea and when they’ve stopped breathing, sometimes it’ll be clear up to a minute and a half that they won’t be getting any rests which is just really, really, surprising because I’d like you know challenge you, hold your breath for a minute and have to see if you can actually do it I think it’s kind of crazy, but the other kind of central Sleep Apnea and that’s a little bit different it’s not something that can be treated through a dental office or through what we do here at my office but those are rare and and central Sleep Apnea is really just where the the brain shuts down and you’re not breathing. So and usually those shorter periods in the brain kind of resets itself as just as you’re sleeping at night. So, it’s, it’s, not a big of a deal. Anyway, so I hope that answer the question what is Sleep Apnea. Sleep Apnea is basically not breathing holding your breath at night not being able to breathe and then you’re waking yourself up enough that you breathe and so continuing through night you will be falling asleep obstructive Sleep Apnea kicks in and you stop breathing it wakes you up you start breathing again because you’re gasping for air and then you’re falling back to sleep again and the big, big, issue of what this really does is you’re not getting a restful night’s sleep. When you have Sleep Apnea whether it’s obstructive or central Sleep Apnea you actually are not ever getting into rem sleep and so your body’s not able to recover from all the activities that you’ve done throughout the day. Your memories are being transferred into long-term memory. So it affects a lot of people in fact statistics show that one in five Americans actually suffer from Sleep Apnea and so if you’ve got five people in your household, one of you’ve got Sleep Apnea. So that’s kind of what Sleep Apnea is I do have another question this one is from jerry and jerry asks how do I know I have Sleep Apnea? Now it’s kind of hard usually it’s a spouse or someone else in the family that says hey I hear you breathing snoring all night when you’re trying to sleep and then you’re stopping you’re gasping for air, then that’s how you would really know that you might have possibly Sleep Apnea also if you’re snoring really loud, now just because you’re snoring it doesn’t necessarily mean that you do have Sleep Apnea. So as far as symptoms go, that’s, that’s, usually how you can tell possibly that you have Sleep Apnea, but more importantly outside of the symptoms of Sleep Apnea being tired throughout the day is, is, one thing you can you can you can experience not being able to focus concentrate having a change in your memory, you’re not remembering things as easily you don’t feel as productive as focused. I know for me I’ve I experienced Sleep Apnea and for me, I was diagnosed you know it’s been about 10 years or so diagnosed with Sleep Apnea and it was more of I can’t spend quality time with my kids, with my family because I’ll go home after work sit on the couch and, and, I’m out cold. So for me that was kind of a trigger of what’s going on that my wife hitting me in the middle of the night to get me breathing again. So you know if you’re experiencing being attacked in the light hit you know because they want to wake you up then you might have Sleep Apnea. So but as far as not just that I want to say hi to teenagers join us and Marcy thanks for joining us how long does it take to get a device Tina asked me how long does it take to get to get a device, I’ll get into that let me talk about what the devices are ways of treating it, but I wanted to say a few things about obstructive Sleep Apnea is the fact that it’s not just the symptoms of Sleep Apnea but the consequences. Sleep Apnea has been known to cause an increase in strokes, an increase in your asthma, hypertension, coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, can cause mood disturbances, memory loss daytime sleepiness high cholesterol, can influence diabetes type 2, obesity and Gerd if you’ve got a lot of acid reflux as you’re guessing for air every night, you’re just causing that gastric reflux to come up in your throat and up into your mouth. So that can even affect your dentition your teeth. So those are just some of the consequences and so my thing in doing sleep has been to really, I want to help people have a better lifestyle and better health. So, I have another question says can someone use a sleep device if they have TMJ issues? That’s kind of a Gray area I’ll talk about that in a minute too. So let me answer Andrew’s question first are Sleep Apnea and weight always related absolutely not just because you might be a little bit obese could make you a little bit more prone to Sleep Apnea but definitely if you’re in your ideal weight range you could have Sleep Apnea just as well as anybody else. So, the only way to know for sure if you have Sleep Apnea is having a sleep test. You need to either like through my office we do a home sleep study. You can go home it’s a simple little appliance that you wear around your waist and then you and then you have a little cannula that comes up on over your into your nose a little bit there so it checks your breathing and also a pulse oximeter which checks your oxygen content of your blood and so those things will tell us kind of what your sleep habits are and what’s going on, and that’s the only way to really, really, know whether you have Sleep Apnea and the severity of your Sleep Apnea and so that’s a good thing so another question I have from Jamie is what are what are my treatment options. Now definitely there are different options out there one of the big ones is if you go to a sleep specialist a physician, he is going to probably prescribe you a CPAP machine and the only reason why they do this because that’s been like the traditional way of treating Sleep Apnea. It’s what they’re more commonly known for they, they, know more about them, how they function and it’s something that the doctor can prescribe for you, but when it comes to an oral appliance which we can make and helps treat Sleep Apnea also that’s another treatment option then with that with that option we can still go with a prescription from a doctor to do that and, and, or it could just be done through it through a dental office like our office. We’d love to help chase the batman by doing oral appliances. So given that I can answer Marcy’s question now. So, we have a couple options here you have a CPAP machine that you could be wearing and a lot of people that I’ve treated in the office are don’t want to either try a CPAP machine don’t want to use a CPAP machine I’ve had a CPAP machine and don’t like it and so one of the best things in the in the treatment options is to have oral appliance. I I like that availability out there so Marcy asks can someone who has who is being treated with TMJ or has TMJ can they be treated with a Sleep Apnea planes I would definitely try first treating their TMJ and their symptoms that go along with that and what she means by TMJ is temporomandibular joint and what that has to do is, is, some degeneration either in the joint area or some trauma or some issues are going on some inflammation. So, I would definitely be seeing someone who treats the TMJ and once you have approval through them and you’re working in conjunction with them then it’s possible that you can make an oral appliance to, to, treat Sleep Apnea but I would definitely be working through a specialists with that and not just putting someone in an oral sleep appliance. So let me show you what ours looks like just so you’re interested I know some people think of mineral sleep appliances some big football mouth guard that you’re going to be wearing all night and looking like you’re the quarterback, but here’s what they actually look like this is one of the ones that we use in our office and this is called the optisleep. It’s actually a really thin appliance but very, very, strong, that works really, really, good and like I said the mechanism behind it is to pull your jaw just a little bit forward and that’s adjusted, so that you can tolerate it we’re definitely not going to severely pull you forward, if you’re going to a great dentist who, who, handles this sort of a thing, he’s going to monitor you carefully want to double check with you on a regular basis just to make sure your appliances are still functioning well for you. So, Tina asked on, on, this also how long does it take to to get a device, you know it just depends on, on, what the device the dentist is actually providing for you. In our office like with Optisleep we actually use a digital scanner scan your bite and your occlusion and then we submit that to the lab and within three weeks, we’re able to get your appliance back and get you sleeping well. So, I hope that answer your question Tina and like I said I love it I I have this device a specific one and I wear it every night. It has made big changes in my life. I know when I have worn it and when I haven’t worn it because if I don’t wear it one night definitely, I’m a lot more exhausted during the day the next day. How long is I have a question from Joe how long is the treatment process? So, the treatment process is the rest of your life. Definitely if you feel like you’re sleeping better and you want to do a sleep study without wearing the device just to see where you’re at to see if there’s been any changes, and whether you have Sleep Apnea still, then we can definitely send you home with another sleep study. We can take a look at that and see exactly where you’re sitting, but from my understanding and from my knowledge and what I’ve learned, Sleep Apnea is one of those things that once you develop it you pretty much have the rest of your life and so we’re pretty much treating that for this your life. Now Tina’s asked another question she says I can’t wait to get one or she just statement it’s yeah they’re, they’re, they’re, really nice and you can tell when a person has had one before and they’re not able to wear it because they’re either going through braces or something like that then they definitely know that they want to get back to that appliance. What are the benefits another question from Andrea what are the benefits of an oral sleep appliance versus my CPAP? Let me just explain a little bit about Sleep Apnea again. Sleep Apnea is defined in different, different, categories from moderate well mild to moderate to severe and that’s based on what we call the AAHI scale and when you do a sleep study you get the results will have a number and it’s the AHI scale which basically tells us your episodes at night and what’s going on and if you’re 30 and above in that in that scale then definitely a CPAP is something that I would highly recommend you at least try and see how that works for you anything below that we can use the oral appliance. Now the benefit of using the oral appliance over the CPAP in my opinion is I can sleep in any position I want to in my bed. I can sleep on my side on my stomach on my back without any interference of having something strapped to my face. That to me is one of the biggest benefits because it’s more comfortable for me. One another benefit is the fact that if you travel a lot for work, you don’t have to be hauling your CPAP machine around you can be using the oral appliance in it and it fits really nicely in your suitcase also if you go camping you don’t have to be looking for an outlet running extension cords clear out to whatever RV or your for your car or carrying a battery or generator with you and you’re able to just take this appliance with you and so there’s been a lot of success and I think that in my opinion that more people are apt to wear this over wearing a CPAP machine but that’s, that’s, my opinion. I do know for a fact that 50 percent at least in the us are not diagnosed with Sleep Apnea, have Sleep Apnea and out of those only 50 percent who are given a CPAP actually wear their CPAPs and so I my goal is I want to make sure that everyone is feeling healthier stays healthy and if we can solve a lot of issues as we’re younger between ages of 30 and 40 years old and 50 years old we can prevent a lot of diseases that are due from our lack of sleep and, and, so I’m reaching out to people who, who, want that sort of a thing and, and, don’t want to have these issues later on in their life and definitely if you’ve got these issues already going on I know people who have tried to lose weight than a really, really, hard time losing weight. Well it could be because you have Sleep Apnea and the Sleep Apnea is actually keeping you from losing weight or you can have fibromyalgia a lot of pain in your in your body and your muscles and that can be to not getting a good night’s rest and your body not be able to recuperate and so this is just a great way that that we can deal with an issue that is going on nationwide, everybody you know I mean people just got this possibility of having Sleep Apnea and it’s great to be able to treat this and help people out. So I hope that helps in understanding what Sleep Apnea is, different ways of treating it and we’ve had a lot of fun treating our office. Patients have really loved it just as an example real fast a woman came in AHI of 60 that’s in the severe range told her she needed to go to the physician wear a CPAP she said she didn’t want to do it we put her in appliance, she’s loving life and that’s how I want to leave things is I want everyone to love life have the energy that they want to have and do the things that they want to do and spend time with their family. So, this has been a great Q and A like I said it’s my first I’m looking forward to doing more of these with you.


To learn more about resolving sleep apnea, call TMJ & Sleep Therapy Centre of Utah, or request a consultation using the online scheduler.