If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. If you want to make an appointment, you can call 480-948-0560 Thanks for visiting!

Sleep apnea is serious and what do we do as Holistic Dentists in regards to sleep apnea partially depends on what the problem is. And the answers to the questions come with diagnostics, sometimes we will have people referred in from a medical doctor.

On occasion, sleep apnea sufferers will bring a whole packet of information from an overnight sleep study in a laboratory. It’s called a PSG for short, or a polysomnogram.

This is where someone has about eighteen leads of all kinds hooked up to your body, and you go to sleep in a strange bed, in a strange place with strange people watching you on television cameras, and they say, “OK, have a good night’s sleep.” Which can be a bit intimidating, but when you’ve got obstructive sleep apnea, you fall asleep like that.

Another option that is available at a Phoenix Holistic Dentist office is a small device that is hooked to your hand. There are two probes, one goes on your ring finger and one goes on your index finger. It is called a watch PAT; stands for Peripheral Arterial Tenography.

PAT gives several different parameters, which are enough information to diagnose basic sleep apnea. If you’re looking to diagnose sleep apnea, PAT has been found to be as accurate as any overnight sleep study. And the cost difference is incredible; it is about $1, 800 if you go to a PSG overnight someplace in a hospital or private stand alone sleep lab versus $375 for the PAT which gives the same results.

The other thing that we do and when we’re looking at a sleep apnea situation is we use a device called a Pharyngometer. What it is, it’s a device that you put it up to your mouth, and it shoots sound waves. Like sonar.

It basically shoots sound waves down into your throat and then it reads them back as they reflect back. There are little microphones inside this tube device that it picks up and it gives you a visual, two dimensional “map” of your throat area.

So what we as holistic dentists, do with that information is we play with a person’s jaw position. First off, we simulate their nighttime sleep. What can we force through a forced expiration and what kind of collapse in the airway will occur.

This is all computer-generated, so then what we do then is we’ll take that information and we can freeze the screen on the computer. Then we’ll have them move their jaw, replicate that same position and we’ll look to see what kind of collapse they have. What we’re looking for is a significant improvement.

The watchPAD, gives us a nice concise two‑page report. And we have this read by a certified sleep doctor. For me as a holistic dentist, I can interpret the numbers and say, I think you have sleep apnea, but I have a board certified sleep doctor that signs off on these tests.

What is interesting to watch while it is happening because you can see the sound wave as it is shooting it and it starts to create the line as it is feeding back the sound wave as it is coming back to the microphone.

Then what we do is we play with jaw position and move the jaw back and forth, and we’re looking for these numbers to change. For example there is a base line, to our collapse. There’s a compliance rate of 45 percent. The airway tube for this example is shrinking 45 percent. 45 percent, that’s huge. They are cutting off a tremendous amount of life sustaining oxygen to that person when they’re sleeping.

A dental appliance, or oral appliances or also called “oral dilators” are an option to open up the airway of the sleep apnea suffer. We want to dilate and open up the airway.

And there many different oral dilator appliances in the dental marketplace but one of the newer versions that I haven’t used it yet though I like the concept, is the SomnoMed. It is a two‑piece appliance that can fully allow opening and closing as well as full lateral excursion, or movement, when you’re sleeping.

Some of the other appliances are fixed together, so when you put them in your mouth, you’re literally locked in. So, if you happen to be one of those teeth grinders, you’re going to have an appliance that has a short life. You’ll fatigue the material and it will break.

This is a fully adjustable, so basically, once such an appliance is in place, the jaw, when the person is sleeping, cannot fall back because it’s locked forward.

So, we use the information from that pharyngometer, we capture the position in space using some uncommon dental materials to lock the three dimensional jaw position that we find optimized on the computer screen.

We send those pieces to the laboratory and we get back an appliance of whatever design or style that the dentist is using. Then, the individual would come back in; we’d test in on the pharyngometer while we’re there in the office and make sure it’s what we want, what we sent off for.

We can readily compare it. This test takes 30 seconds, so it can be test repeatedly, and if a person needs to have an adjustment to the appliance.

So, that’s the concept of the oral appliance. These work very well so you can keep the tongue away from the back of the throat, and you’re taking the tube and keeping it open, so you’re going to have better oxygenation. Therefore, a successful treatment means a happy spouse or partner, a more alive patient, and a satisfied practitioner.

Oral appliance therapy is a surgical alternative to obstructive sleep apnea.

{ 0 comments }