We can now bill your medical insurance to help with costs for treating Sleep Apnea!!
So much about sleep apnea and airway issues is frustrating, and it’s an easy issue to ignore or postpone, however the worst thing you can do is put it off! This is such an important issue that we are now filing with your medical insurance company to minimize your out-of-pocket costs. More about how terrible it is to ignore it in a minute, but to start we want to announce this exciting news about making this more affordable! If snoring or sleep apnea pertains you, or your bed partner is keeping you up at night with their snoring or choking on their tongue, this is an excellent opportunity to get this serious and life-threatening issue addressed and take advantage of your medical insurance in the process!
There are a lot of things that lead us to simply ignoring the signs of sleep apnea and while we do, it gets worse and we get more sick! One of the most obvious reasons it goes unnoticed is the problem happens when we are asleep. Also, one of the more apparent signs is snoring, but the social norm is to roll our eyes at it and elbow our bed partner in the ribs over it, but not to see it as a potential sign of a serious medical health issue! What the science clearly shows is that loud snoring or any noisy sleep is a clear indicator of some level of sleep-disordered breathing or obstructive sleep apnea and in many cases, this is life-threatening! In fact, there are a lot of things that have been socially normalized but are also clear indications of a higher risk for sleep apnea. If your dental arches are crowded or the roof of your mouth has been called a high vaulted palate it’s worth looking deeper. If you can see indentations from your teeth on the side of your tongue when you open, you are at a much higher risk. If your lower front teeth disappear when you close your teeth together, you are at a much higher risk. We are discovering that there are so many more obvious signs of a high risk for obstructive sleep apnea that until recently, no one really knew it was more than just crooked teeth or a funny shaped nose.
Of course, it isn’t just sleep that is impacted. After getting a poor quantity of sleep, you are tired and a little slower the next day, but after getting poor quality of sleep it is so much more! For sure you are tired and dragging, and can’t focus as well and need that mid-day cup of coffee or nap. But also, your body isn’t able to heal itself. The reality is sleep is incredibly important for several reasons. During different periods of sleep, our body works to correct and heal itself. During one phase it regulates hormones and that impacts your ability to do things like maintain your ideal weight. During another phase, it will lock knowledge into memory and assimilate ideas in your head. In still another your body heals itself, where it maintains blood sugar control and blood pressure and every other organ system in a healthy state. These happen on a predictable schedule and for most people, take about 7-8 hours to filter through. If you don’t get the proper quantity and quality of sleep for a night, it is something you can recover from over the next few nights. However, if poor sleep stretches over weeks and months and years, eventually it is so bad that you need to manage other issues like high blood pressure with medication. In fact, if you are on two medications for hypertension, your risk of having Obstructive Sleep Apnea as the root cause is nearly 80%. If you have had to move to three medications, it is nearly 100%!
We know now that sleep and airway issues are a progressive disease process and they wreak havoc on the rest of the body. The sooner you intervene, the better your chances for a healthier long-term life. Snoring is a great early warning sign and is ideally managed with a snoring appliance. In fact, early and moderate obstructive sleep apnea sufferers do much better with a dental sleep appliance than the traditional medical solutions of CPAP or surgery. Like so many things, the sooner you address the issue, the simpler the solution is and the better the long-term results! While it is easy to think of this as an old fat man’s disease, that simply isn’t the case. No question that carrying more weight has a dramatic impact and puts you at a much higher risk. But there is also an airway issue that is very common in thin fit people and particularly young fit women. If you find yourself tired during the day or have chronic head or neck aches or 8 hours of sleep isn’t enough to get your body rested, give us a call and we can set up a consultation to help determine your risk and help you find some solutions to get better rest at night and have a better life during the day!