What is snoring?

Snoring is noisy breathing through the mouth and nose during sleep. It can occur when you are breathing in or out.

What causes snoring and who is at risk?

Snoring occurs when air does not flow smoothly through the air passages, or when the soft tissues or muscles in your air passages vibrate. As you fall into a deep sleep, the muscles in your tongue, throat and roof of your mouth (soft palate) relax. This muscle relaxation causes your throat tissues to sag. As you breathe, the sagging tissues narrow your airway and vibrate or flutter, creating the sound of snoring. The narrower your airway becomes, the greater the vibration...and the louder your snoring.

Snoring affects 45 per cent of the population from time to time and an estimated 25 per cent of people are habitual snorers. There are a number of reasons why you may snore.

• Age can be a factor. The older you get, the weaker your throat muscles become. Weak throat muscles cause the surrounding tissues to sag and vibrate.
• If you are overweight, your throat tissues are less firm and more inclined to vibrate when you breathe.
• A low-set, thick soft palate, or enlarged tonsils or adenoids (the spongy tissue between the back of the nose and throat) can narrow your airway.
• A longer-than-normal uvula (the triangular piece of skin that hangs from your soft palate) can limit airflow and increase vibrations as you breathe.
• Nasal blockages caused by allergies or a deviated septum (when the partition between your nose is crooked) can limit airflow through your nose. This forces you to breathe through your mouth where more flabby tissue is located.
• Alcohol and certain drugs (such as tranquillisers) affect your central nervous system, causing extreme relaxation of your muscles, including those in your throat.
• When you sleep on your back, your tongue falls backwards into your throat which can narrow your airway and partly block airflow.

When does snoring indicate a more serious problem?

Rarely, snoring can indicate a more serious problem. If you snore loudly with occasional pauses in breathing, and you frequently wake up during the night, you may be suffering from sleep apnoea. Ask your partner, or a member of your family to listen for signs of this disorder.

Sleep apnoea is periods when you stop breathing while you're sleeping. These interruptions in your breathing, which can last 10 seconds or longer, occur when the muscles in your soft palate, uvula, tongue and tonsils relax during sleep. This is the same process involved with normal snoring, but with sleep apnoea, the airway narrows so much that it closes. Your breathing stops, cutting off the flow of oxygen into your body and reducing the elimination of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the blood. Your brain detects this rise in CO2 and briefly wakes you up, re-opening your airways and re-starting your breathing. This process can be repeated several times during the night. Proper sleep may become impossible, resulting in severe fatigue and a decreased quality of life. Sleep apnoea in adults can increase the risk of serious health problems such as heart failure, because it deprives the sufferer of adequate levels of oxygen, making the heart work harder than normal.

What are the existing treatments for snoring?
Recommended cures for snoring vary from sewing a tennis ball into the pajama pocket of a person snoring to electric shock bands that give the person snoring a shock when they start snoring! Most of these remedies and devices are based on trying to keep the person snoring off their back or on the assumption that a person can be trained not to snore. Unfortunately, the person snoring has no control over their snoring.

Snoring occurs when floppy tissue in the airway relaxes during sleep and vibrates. Most snoring is caused by an enlarged or elongated soft palate and uvula at the back of the mouth.

An alternative to existing treatments
Somnoplasty is a unique procedure for shrinking redundant tissue. It is employed for reducing the volume of an enlarged soft palate and uvula as a treatment for habitual snoring.

LAUP
A new technique utilizing the CO2 laser, improves post-operative results and also allows ambulatory treatment of snoring. Laser Assisted Uvula-Palatoplasty (LAUP) is an office procedure performed under local anesthesia.

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More than one session may be required in some patients. The whole procedure take more or less than 15 minutes.

Coblation ,Somnoplasty
A novel method applying radio frequency energy to shrink or reduce the excess tissue that cause snoring. This is a simple office procedure; cause only a minimal discomfort postoperatively. The procedure often takes less than 60 minutes, usually require no recovery period.

Allergic Nose
A novel simple laser technique can eliminate the symptom of allergic rhinitis within a few minutes of an office procedure. This can also reduce the snoring sound.