It’s amazing how one small change can affect your life.

You cut out soft drinks, and within a couple of weeks, you’ve lost several pounds.

You start taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and soon you’re less winded than usual and your legs feel stronger and more defined.

Small changes can have a positive, lasting impact on your health.

The same is true for small treatment.

At Highland Advanced Dental Care, we can help improve your sleep with one small oral appliance.

Today, we’re talking about sleep apnea, a sleep disorder that causes you to go back and forth from sleep to wakefulness because your airways keep closing through the night. It’s a pattern that must be broken for the sake of your health, and when you come to us for treatment, that’s exactly what we aim to do!

What Loud Snoring Is Trying To Say

If you snore every once in a while, it’s not really something to be concerned about. In fact, anyone can snore at any age, for any reason.

But when the snoring is loud and ongoing night after night, it could be your body’s way of telling you something’s wrong.

Sleep apnea is a potentially deadly sleep disorder that’s closely tied to chronic snoring. But it carries far worse consequences to your health, as well.

Health Dangers Of Sleep Apnea

While chronic snoring is annoying to those who share a home with you, it’s not the only problem that sleep apnea brings with it. Here are health related issues commonly associated with sleep apnea that should be cause for concern:

High Blood Pressure

Many people have no idea how much stress sleep apnea can put on your heart and blood vessels.

When you’re deprived of oxygen, as you are hundreds of time a night with sleep apnea, your body will figure out a way to compensate. It’s how we were built, to survive any situation no matter what.

While this is an amazing inner mechanism, it can also be dangerous. When you can’t breathe, your heart will start to pump extra hard to get oxygenated blood through your body.

All that stress will ultimately increase your risk for heart problems and high blood pressure.

Increased Irritability

Losing sleep now and then is common. Stressful situations can make anyone too restless to sleep from time to time.

But prolonged sleep deprivation can result in increased irritability, moodiness, and depression.

A short fuse under the weight of all your responsibilities can affect you and those close to you. When that happens, you’re not the only one who suffers.

Unusual Sleep Behaviors

Walking or talking in your sleep can make for an amusing story later, but actually, these nightly behaviors can put you in danger. You’re not the one in control while sleepwalking, which means you could try to all sorts of things that demand your full attention!

Weight gain is a sign of sleep apnea, so it could be that you’re even eating at night without knowing it!

Trouble Focusing

When you’re completely drained of energy because of sleep deprivation, it’s almost impossible to stay focused.

Think about how easy it would be to let poor concentration affect your job. It’s risky on a professional level, but also in terms of your safety and that of the people around you.

The same is true for your ability to focus at home. When you have trouble focusing on the task at hand, you could walk away from the stove and forget you have something boiling or be too distracted to spend quality time with your family.

Distractibility & Accidents

Along with poor concentration, sleep apnea can also put you at risk for car accidents. Studies show this connection most likely because of how easily distracted you are when deprived of sleep.

This is something that not only puts you in harm’s way, but it can affect everyone around you.

Schedule An Appointment

Your body needs enough rest to function properly. Not just that, but you need it to protect your health overall.

Rather than take the risk of ignoring your snoring problem, be on the safe side and schedule an appointment with Dr. LoCascio.

At Highland Advanced Dental Care, we can give you a custom oral appliance that will keep your airways open more comfortably and conveniently than a CPAP machine can.

With this one small change, you can radically improve your sleep and your health in 2018. Let us help you today!

Find out if you have sleep apnea at Highland Advanced Dental Care. Fill out our online form or call our Highland Township, MI office at 248-329-3552 today.