Oral Appliance Therapy for Snoring in Detroit

Benefits of Appliance Therapy for Snoring

Oral appliances are great snoring treatments because they are:

This comfortable, convenient snoring treatment can be used by men and women of any age to alleviate or dramatically reduce snoring. They are a fully reversible treatment that can be started or stopped as necessary if you have seasonal snoring.

The risks of oral appliances are jaw soreness, even TMJ, and orthodontic changes, but these can be minimized with proper fitting.

How Oral Appliance Therapy for Snoring Works

With sleep apnea, there tend to be strict treatment protocols so almost all devices take a single approach to treatment, but with snoring oral appliances utilize several different approaches to reduce or eliminate snoring.

Mandible advancement devices (MADs) or mandible repositioning devices (MRD) utilize the connection between your jaw and your airway. Your jaw provides support for your airway, but if it’s not in the right position, your airway is more likely to close. By putting your jaw in a highly supportive position, MADs or MRDs keep your airway open. Most of these are adjustable like sleep apnea appliance therapy, and in some cases the same device is used for snoring and sleep apnea treatment.

Tongue retention devices try to keep your tongue from falling back into you airway, restricting the flow of air. Most of these work by creating suction in the front part of the mouth that helps hold the tongue forward.

Soft palate lifters work by trying to stabilize the roof of your mouth. At the back of your mouth, the roof is made out of the soft palate, a floppy piece of tissue that can sag into the airway and vibrate with breathing. It’s one of the most common sources of loud snoring. Soft palate lifters try to stabilize this tissue, but they are among the least effective snoring appliances and the most uncomfortable.

Don’t Be Tempted by Over-the-Counter Imitators

When you think about a snoring appliance therapy, you might notice that they sell versions at the drug store. You might be tempted to try these, but these are not only likely to be ineffective, they can be harmful. If you try an over-the-counter oral appliance and it doesn’t work, it can make you think that a better appliance won’t work, either.

Worst of all, though, the over-the-counter appliances aren’t fitted to your bite. They may use boil-and-bite methods to fit to your teeth, but because they aren’t customized to your jaw, they can still cause teeth wear, jaw pain, and even TMJ. These over-the-counter solutions may seem inexpensive at first, but the long-term cost can be very high.

If you are looking for properly fitted, comfortable, and effective oral appliance therapy for your snoring in Detroit, please call the Michigan Center for TMJ & Sleep Wellness today at (248) 480-0085.