Sleep Apnea Therapy Rest Easy in Houston, TX

Do you snore loudly every night? Do you wake up tired despite sleeping for 7-8 hours? Do you ever wake up during the night gasping for air? If so, you may be suffering from sleep apnea, which is a disorder where a person stops breathing periodically throughout the night. The most common form is called obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA. It is usually caused by a poor jaw position during sleep, large tonsils/adenoids, or the tissues in the mouth and throat collapsing into the airway. Regardless, the end result is that a person’s breathing is temporarily halted, and their body immediately goes into panic mode trying to restore it. This is extremely stressful for the body, and it often happens hundreds of times a night! Surprisingly, most people actually sleep right through it, which is why nearly 80% of all sleep apnea suffers go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

How We Can Treat Your Sleep Apnea

The typical treatment for this condition is CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) therapy. A patient wears a facemask that is connected to an air pump via a hose, and it literally keeps their throat open by forcing air into it. As you can imagine, many patients find this experience extremely uncomfortable, which is why as many as 50% of the people prescribed to use a CPAP machine stop after just the first year.

Fortunately, Dr. Cher Rich can provide a simple, easy to use, and effective alternative: oral appliance therapy. This will involve her making a small mouthpiece that a patient will wear to bed each night to slightly shift their jaw forward to prevent the airway from becoming obstructed. Since every oral appliance is custom-made, they are extremely comfortable, and patients can drink and speak normally while wearing them. They are fantastic at relieving the symptoms of OSA, as 90% of the people who wear them regularly see a dramatic increase in their sleep quality.