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Loud snoring may not sound like a big deal until your partner tells you she can’t be with you because you snore. Jokes aside, snoring is a major sign of sleep apnea, a sleep disorder that can affect your day to day life. Luckily, there are treatments for this condition. In this blog, we will discuss sleep apnea in detail to help you make an informed decision about the treatment options available.

What is Sleep, Apnea?

Sleep apnea is a disorder that causes breathing interruptions when one is sleeping. The interruptions cause pauses that can last up to 20 seconds. The pauses can happen up to 100 times in one hour.

These pauses minimize the amount of oxygen you inhale, leading to less deep sleep, making you feel fatigued to carry out your daily activities. The disorder can also lead to potentially severe health conditions. Therefore, if you notice signs of sleep apnea, you should get help as soon as possible.

Types of Sleep Apnea

• Obstructive sleep apnea. It is the most common type, often characterized by loud snoring and interrupted breathing.
• Central sleep apnea. This type is less common and often caused by underlying health conditions. Typically, people suffering from central sleep apnea rarely snore.
• Mixed sleep apnea: It is a rare combination of obstructive and central sleep apnea.

Signs of Apnea

It is not easy to identify you suffer from sleep apnea if you live alone since the major symptoms occur when you are sleeping. If you have a partner, it will be much easier since they can observe the symptoms of sleep disorder, which include:

• Frequent and loud snoring
• Gasping for air in your sleep
• Daytime fatigue and sleepiness despite sleeping for eight hours or more.
• Waking up with a sore throat or dry mouth
• Insomnia
• Shortness of breath when you wake up
• Morning headache.

Sleep Apnea Treatment Options

Before your dentist or doctor starts treating you for the disorder, you will need to be diagnosed. The diagnosis is often made based on your sleep, as shown by a study by a sleep specialist. Typically, if you have more than 30 pauses in an hour, you suffer from severe apnea. Luckily, even extreme apnea is treatable. Here are the treatment options that you have:

Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP)

CPAP involves the use of sleep apnea devices that delivers more air pressure than the surrounding air. By doing so, your airways stay open, hence preventing you from snoring. Just make sure to choose a device that will feel comfortable while using. If you continue snoring even with the machine, contact your doctor.

Use Other Appliances

If CPAP does not work for you, your doctor will recommend other devices such as BPAP and oral appliances. Most of the devices are available in your dentist’s office, so you can try several to identify the one that feels the most comfortable.

Treatment of Associated Health Problems

Central sleep apnea is often caused by underlying medical conditions. If the conditions are treated, it might help with the apnea.

Supplemental Oxygen

Central sleep apnea can be treated by ensuring you get enough oxygen to the lungs using oxygen devices often available in a dental office.

Surgery

If other sleep apnea treatment options fail to help you with the condition, your doctor will suggest surgery. It is typically the last resort and only considered after at least a month’s trial with the other treatment options. There are several surgical treatments, including:

• Tissue removal
• Tissue shrinkage
• Sleep apnea implants (not to be confused with dental implants).
• Jaw repositioning
• Nerve stimulation
• Bariatric surgery

Your dentist will help you choose the most suitable surgery for your condition. In most cases, surgical treatment will work.

At-Home Remedies

For mild to moderate sleep apnea, you can adopt a few lifestyle changes to manage the disorder. These changes include:

• Losing a few pounds
• Regular exercise can help manage obstructive sleep apnea.
• Avoid alcohol
• Avoid medications that can relax the muscles of your throat, such as sleeping pills and tranquilizers.
• Sleep on your abdomen or side if you are a back sleeper.
• Quit smoking

Family Dental Care

If you are looking for a dentist in Chicago, you are in the right place. We can help you with snoring and sleep apnea as well as dental conditions such as teeth whitening, cleaning, and exams. Book an appointment today.

Dental emergency refers to issues that affect both the teeth and its supporting tissues that should be addressed immediately with a relevant professional. A common sign of dental emergencies is pain, which is felt around the tooth or the surrounding tissues.

An expert in the field can be able to identify the cause of pain and address the issue depending on what level of pain the patient is feeling.

There are many types of dental emergencies in existence, and they range from having fractured teeth and dental restorations to infections caused by bacteria, viruses, or fungi. Each situation is given a different approach, and the treatment is unique to each situation.

For instance, if a person is suffering from dental trauma (fractures), the kind of treatment approach he or she will receive from a medical practitioner will depend on the extent of the fracture and the site where the fracture has occurred.

Since you cannot predict when you or a member of your family will have a dental emergency, you should book with a dental clinic that offers emergency dental services beyond office hours. With this in check, you’ll never have to worry because you will be sure that you can count on your emergency dentist at any hour of need.

Family Dental Care offers such services and has emergency dentists in Chicago, IL, and another dentist in Crestwood, IL, among many other locations. Call us, and you will receive professional dental care from our clinic that’s closest to you.

Examples of Common Dental Emergencies

Brushing your teeth after every meal and flossing before going to bed will help keep dental problems at bay, but there are oral issues that call for an emergency procedure. Statistics show that people have lost about 320 million of school or work hours because of dental issues and dental emergencies are responsible for the loss of 92 million hours out of the 320 million lost.

Unfortunately, there are still many people who wouldn’t tell if their condition should be regarded as an emergency that requires urgent attention or not. Thus, they will be reluctant to visit the dentist, and this will result in more pain, further complications, and more medical expenses paid.

If you have a dental issue that can wait to be addressed during your next visit to the dentist, then that does not fit in the category of dental emergencies. To give you a better understanding, here are some examples of common dental emergencies:

• Trauma

Trauma is caused by accidents, and it often results in teeth dislodgment, tooth loss, or bleeding. Even at its worst, the dislodged tooth can still be saved, and timeliness is the key. If you have lost your tooth, use milk or water to rinse it and tuck the tooth inside the cheeks.

This helps in keeping the root and tooth moisturized as you head to the dentist ASAP. The emergency dentist will treat your pain, stop any bleeding, and conduct an assessment to determine whether the tooth can be saved.

• Cracked Tooth

There many factors that can cause a tooth to crack, primarily if you have surpassed the age of 50. This is because, at this stage of life, your teeth are naturally weak. Regardless of the cause, visit a dentist for treatment if there are sharp fragments left inside the mouth or if you are in excruciating pain.

• Severe Unexplained Tooth Pains

Toothaches can be quite painful and can develop as a result of a dental procedure gone wrong or due to the formation of gum and pulpal abscess, subjecting the sufferer to discomfort. This makes one feel pain when biting and chewing, and for this reason, immediate dental attention is required.

• Lost Fillings

The loss of dental fillings is considered as a case of emergency if it causes severe inflammation and pain. Inflammation occurs when the tooth tissue gets exposed to bacteria. The bacteria infest the tissue and cause an infection to arise.

Other examples include a swollen jaw or mouth, bleeding gums, and the coming off of dental crowns.

How it is Beneficial During Covid 19

Due to how fast and easy the spread of Covid19 is, most dental clinics have shut down their daily functioning routine as a precautionary measure to stop it from spreading. However, the clinics are open for emergency dental services only, helping to address dental emergencies that people may develop while quarantining at their homes. This has promoted ideal oral care and also the overall general health of people.

The oral cancer awareness month begins from 1st April and encouragement is being provided to dentists and other dental professionals by the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons to increase awareness of facial protection and oral cancer screenings in April.

It is believed by the foundation for oral cancer that oral and oropharyngeal cancers must be screened every year beginning from the age of 18. The foundation recommends visual and tactile screenings that are quick, usually free or inexpensive and non-invasive. Oral cancer only occurs in a particular area of the body making it easy to screening to detect its development in the early stages.

The foundation has established that front of the mouth oral cancers are generally related to the use of tobacco, heavy consumption of alcohol or a genetic predisposition in some cases. These instances often produce visible precancerous tissue changes visible to the naked eye. Cancer, related to tobacco occurs in the rear of the mouth but incidences of oral cancer caused by HPV16 virus are more frequently being identified.

The Goal of the AAOMS

The AAOMS that founded the National facial protection month in April also aims to promote the use of protective gear like mouth guards and helmets to prevent dental and facial injuries resulting from sports and recreational activities. The campaign aims to educate the public about how to avoid injuries by:

• Wearing a mouthguard during all contact and collision sports.
• Using a helmet when biking, playing football, basketball, softball, lacrosse, or hockey.
• Spectators of sporting events are also recommended advise and asked to avoid foul baseballs and flying hockey pucks.

This body is also encouraging professionals in the dental specialty to observe the oral cancer awareness month by providing oral cancer screening to their patients and the general public to detect the early signs of mouth cancer. Encouragement is also being provided to the general public to conduct self-exams every month and look for suspicious sores or a bump on the roof of the mouth.

How Can Oral Cancer Screenings Be Conducted

The dentist in Chicago, IL, is using different technologies for dental screening and visual screening of oral cancer. The most common technology being used is the blue light which helps to distinguish some changes in the tissue that will not be different from the surrounding tissue for the dentist. Any changes observed are not a sign that the patient is affected by cancer because the vast majority of the discoveries with changes in the tissue are benign. The light has not been designed specifically for locating cancer but is a little tool in the armory of the dentist. It must be noted that cancers of HPV origin start deep within the tissues where the light cannot reach.

Any tumors discovered in the early stages can be tiny and often fewer than 5 MM in size to compound the difficulty of discovery. Tests are presently available using saliva or cells rinsed from the mouth and sent to the laboratory to look for molecular markers that may indicate malignancy.

What Can People Expect from Oral Cancer Screening?

Average individuals will not understand what the doctor is looking at or thinking as their mouths are being examined. The average individual may be confused about whether the dentist will recognize any signs of oral cancer, are they using all the tools available to them when examining their mouths, and many other but may still be the dark about the examination and why it is being conducted.

Many professionals believe that an examination for oral cancer is not required because it cannot save lives. At the same time, another group believes that oral cancer screenings must be conducted regularly to identify any problems in the mouth. It is, however, a known fact that the screenings will help to treat incidences of oral cancer successfully if detected in the earliest stages which is the primary aim of the AAOMS and the ADA which is again promoting the campaign to encourage people and dental professionals to participate in the same wholeheartedly and contribute in every way possible to make the awareness program a resounding success. They are even providing resources such as posters, downloadable social media images, videos, and infographics on the website of the AAOMS. One hopes that people will take advantage of the campaign and get themselves screened for oral cancer during April by scheduling an appointment with the dentist in Chicago, IL.

The month of February 2020 will see the arrival of the National Children’s Dental Health Month organized by the American Dental Association. This is a month-long program that draws together thousands of dental specialists, healthcare providers, educators to promote the advantages of good oral hygiene for children, their caregivers, teachers, and many more.

The ADA has conjured up a slogan for the campaign which states “Brush and Clean in between to Build a Healthy Smile.” The month-long campaign will see the ADA interacting with parents and kids not just to clean the top and sides of their teeth but also between each tooth.

Social Media Platforms like Facebook and Twitter Supporting the Campaign

These days when even an act like sneezing or frowning finds a mention on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter can it be expected that the ADA would stay away from promoting the dental health month for children over social media? Thankfully, they haven’t and people that want to get the latest updates or share tips on how the message of good oral health among children can be spread can easily access the information by visiting the NCDHM page. People can also contact participating dental professionals like the dentist in Chicago IL and the dentist from Eastside IL for information if they for any reason are unable to download the NCDHM program planning guide which is freely available over the Internet.

Why Is the ADA Organizing NCDHM?

Questions may be raised by many people about why the ADA is organizing the NCDHM campaign for children when dentists throughout the country are making all efforts necessary to provide children with the best care possible. Some skeptics may even comment that the effort is a waste of resources that could have been used better elsewhere.

The ADA has valid reasons to promote a campaign of this type considering that nearly 40 percent of all children need fillings in their mouths before reaching kindergarten. The problem is even worse in Washington where approximately 60 percent of children are affected by tooth decay of some kind. The data is not a reflection on dentists who may be assumed are not providing proper dental care for children. However, if dental problems are still affecting children despite the commendable services provided by dentists it is an indication that more education about the oral health of children needs to be imparted to the parents, caregivers, teachers, and many more.

The ADA along with the participants will be hoping that the message of the campaign will be absorbed by the general public to attempt to bring about a reduction in dental health problems among children.

Will the Campaign Achieve Its Goals?

The oral health of children does not receive the attention it deserves despite advice provided by pediatric dentists. Varied reasons exist for the lack of attention given to the dental healthcare needs of children. Many people believe that the oral health of children does not deserve the importance being demanded because the baby teeth will fall off by the age of six. It is a misconception among people that dental care only needs to begin from the age of six or after the permanent teeth have erupted.

Family dental care has performed fillings on babies as young as two years old for cavities that developed from tooth decay confirming that dental care for children must begin even before the first tooth erupts at around six months of age. It may be assumed that parents of newborns would be confused about how they should care for baby teeth that do not exist and it is precisely for these reasons that the ADA is attempting to bring together thousands of professionals and others to educate parents about the dental care needs of children from infancy until the preteens.

It must also be mentioned that some people may not have access to proper dental care or may not be in a position to afford the same. The campaign is an effort on the part of the ADA to educate people about the dental health of their children throughout February with the assumption that parents, caregivers, teachers, and others will continue to push the message forward after the end of the campaign over. People that miss the campaign for any reason can always contact Evergreen park dentist or Family Dental Care for all information they need about pediatric dental care.