If you’re one of the 90 million Americans who snores, or you’re one of their sleep-deprived partners, you already know how inconvenient and frustrating snoring can be. It leaves the snorer groggy and unprepared for the day ahead. It also puts them at higher risk for heart disease. Snoring problems leave their partners groggy too, but also annoyed, frustrated, and desperate for effective snoring solutions.
Dr. Lee Mandel – the Director of Florida Sinus & Snoring Specialists and South Florida Snoring and Sleep Center – has the solution. It all starts with determining the cause of your snoring through a personalized Home Sleep Test.
What Causes Snoring Problems?
Before we look at the benefits of at-home sleep testing, we need to answer an age-old question: what causes snoring problems? While this may seem like a simple question, the answer is anything but. Snoring has various causes, ranging from the minor to the incredibly serious.
Common culprits of this noisy nighttime phenomenon include:
- Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) – snoring isn’t always caused by OSA, but it can be. Obstructive Sleep Apnea is a sleep disorder that causes your breathing to stop and start. One of its main symptoms is snoring.
- Your Mouth’s Anatomy – having an elongated or overextended uvula, a soft palate, or even extra tissue due to weight, are all causes of snoring. Soft palates can be treated with a procedure known as Minimally Invasive Palatal Stiffening
- Alcohol and Prescription Medication – drinking excessively before bed often leads to the relaxation of your throat muscles. This causes them to obstruct your airway and vibrate, which leads to snoring. Prescription medication like benzodiazepines can have a similar effect.
Other common causes of snoring include weight, sleep position, nasal damage (think a deviated septum), and the existence of sinus infections.
Personalized Snoring Solutions
Now that we know what causes snoring problems, it’s time to look at the importance of properly diagnosing what’s causing your snoring. After all, effective treatment starts with an accurate diagnosis.
Sleep research is nothing new. It’s been around in one form or another since 1913, though modern sleep testing only began in the late 20th Century. Known in the medical field as polysomnography, sleep testing is an umbrella term for several specific tests. It usually consists of an EEG, EOG, EMG, ECG or EKG, nasal airflow tests, pulse oximetry, and sound probe tests. This exhaustive gamut of testing paints a holistic picture of snoring problems and is the first step towards developing personalized snoring solutions.
Most sleep testing is performed at outside facilities. This means you have to go to a third-party medical testing facility, where you’re hooked up to countless monitors. It isn’t exactly conducive to sleep, which often leads to inaccurate data and results. When it comes to diagnosing the underlying cause of snoring problems, home sleep testing is a much better choice.
Dr. Mandel has specialized, convenient, and most importantly, effective home sleep testing kits. He uses these to perform incredibly detailed sleep and snoring tests from the comfort of your home. You don’t need to schedule an appointment at an outside facility or be hooked up to several monitoring devices. You simply wear the Sleep Monitor in your bed. Dr. Mandel analyzes the data and starts creating personalized (and permanent!) snoring solutions.
Call Florida Sinus & Snoring Specialists today at (954) 983-1211 to schedule your home sleep test! You can also request an appointment online, and a member of our team will be in contact shortly.
