A snoring clinic is a type of facility that is designed to analyze symptoms of and diagnose snoring problems. If you or you know anyone who is suffering from snoring, this is one of the best places to go in order to get the treatment you need.
How Can a Snoring Clinic Help?
A snoring clinic is a facility that can provide out-patient consultation for anyone who is suffering from moderate to severe snoring issues. The out-patient services will give you access to a number of tests that are conducted with the aim of diagnosing the patient. A multidisciplinary team is involved in the diagnosis and planning of treatment.
One of the tests done on patients is flexible endoscopy in order to assess if there is a collapse in the upper airway. This collapse can lead to vibrations in your air passage as you breathe during sleep. In addition to this test, there are other forms of investigation that are done to gather data that can be further analyzed.
A sleep study is one of these tests. In this study, you will be monitored during your sleep and your vital signs will be monitored through a computer. An EEG monitor is used during the test in order to track your brain activity. The data gathered is used to evaluate any patterns in your sleep cycle and if there are any disturbances. In addition to your brain activity, a sleep specialist will also look into your oxygen levels, breathing patterns, and heart rate. All of these vital signs are jointly evaluated to assess the extent of your snoring problem.
Some or a few of the following tests are done, depending on the initial assessment of the patient: sleep actigraphy, sleep diaries, and full polysomnography.
What Snoring Treatment Options Are Available For You?
A visit to the sleep clinic is intended for diagnosis. Only until you are properly diagnosed can a treatment approach be recommended by your doctor, which showcases the importance of visiting a sleep clinic for snoring.
The following are the current treatment options available for snoring patients:
- Oral Appliances – These are devices constructed by a dentist or sleep doctor to aid in stopping your snoring problems. Some of the common examples of snoring treatment devices are nasal dilators, snoring mouthpieces, and snoring mouth guards. They are also known as mandibular advancement devices (MAD).
- CPAP Device – The use of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure devices direct air into the back of your throat so as to prevent a collapse in your air passage. The CPAP device is worn like a mask during sleep.
- Surgery – If none of the above treatment options work, surgery is often recommended to treat snoring. The exact type of surgical procedure will vary depending on the cause of snoring.
- Lifestyle Modifications – There are a few lifestyle changes that you can do to address snoring problems. One of them is weight loss. If you gain weight, you are more prone to snoring. Proper sleeping position is also one of the recommended natural approaches to snoring problems.
How Snoring Affects Your Life
It is no secret that snoring can have an impact on your life (even outside the bedroom). Your partner is the one who experiences a blunt of this impact because it affects their sleep quality (due to sleep loss). When your partner lacks sleep, they become more irritable until it leads to relationship dissatisfaction.
For the individual who snores, it can also affect your own health (physical and mental). It can mess up your sleep cycle and prevents you from going into a deep sleep. Over time, it can lead to sleep deprivation and can cause a variety of serious health conditions. Among the health conditions that can be attributed to snoring include obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
Snoring is undeniably annoying, especially to the individual who you share a bedroom with. It is, therefore, important to address snoring problems if you want to improve the quality of your life and that of your relationship.
What to Expect
During a sleep study in a snoring clinic, there are a few standard procedures that you need to follow. Below are a few things you need to know and what to expect once you are in the clinic:
- You will have your own private room and bed in a clinic. All you have to do is go to sleep with the EEG monitors attached to specific parts of your body for monitoring. A sleep technician will be sitting nearby to keep a close eye on the monitoring equipment. Some people will feel a little uncomfortable about the monitoring wires and equipment but this will go away when you get used to it.
- You will be asked to stay overnight in a dark and comfortable place to allow you to go to sleep quickly. You will also have access to a private bathroom when needed.
- The electrodes will be attached to your face, chest, scalp, and limbs. Each of these electrodes will send electrical signals that will reflect the brain and muscle activity of the patient. This will provide the technicians a more detailed analysis of the vital information to assess your sleep quality and snoring issues.
- For sleep studies that are focused primarily on monitoring snoring issues, a snore microphone is also provided. This equipment is designed to record the airflow and the extent of snoring volume.
- Once the study duration is done, you can go back to your everyday activities as normal. When that is done, the sleep technician will evaluate the information gathered from the sleep study to make a diagnosis and recommend treatment.
Snoring Clinic Sydney
When you are dealing with snoring, there are now experts from a snoring clinic in Sydney to help with your case. Aside from dealing with sleep problems caused by snoring, these sleep labs can also provide diagnosis and relief against TMJ disorders.
Sleep studies are designed to diagnose any sleeping disorder, not just snoring. Most of these disorders cannot be identified with a regular office visit to your doctor. More conclusive evidence is needed in order for them to make a diagnosis, wherein a snoring clinic will be able to provide you with more detailed data.
A sleep study is a non-invasive exam that doctors use to see what is happening in your brain and body during sleep. If you have problems with snoring and are seeking treatment for it, the experts at a sleep clinic can be of help. When in Sydney, finding a sleep clinic is a vital step if you want to stop snoring, as well as to prevent any possible complications that could arise from it.
