Root Causes of Sleep Apnea & Snoring

Disclaimer: Not medical advice. Based on my own sleep data and experience and takeaways from conversations with doctors. LAY PERSPECTIVE!

What causes sleep apnea… and a potential new product!

What is snoring and sleep apnea? There is a narrowing or blockage in the airway, most likely in the retropharyngeal (i.e. throat) area, which leads vibrating tissues (i.e. snoring!), or the body waking up to breathe (sleep apnea).

Why the heck does this happen?

Not enough space? Doctors could remove tissues in the palate (UPPP) or tonsils (for kids), which turned out was not that effective. Or taking it a step forward, even surgically move the upper / lower jaws forward (MMO,MMA) to create more space. That was very effective for sleep apnea treatment.

Snoring and sleep apnea seems to pass generation to generation, so the clue of the root cause could be the structure of the head (craniofacial).

But this kind of surgery is way too intense!

Tongue in the way? One thing surgeons noticed is that the tongue seemed to be the big contributor (estimated 60%) to the airway blockage. Here is also where weight started to play a factor with fat on the tongue and on the neck.

Treatments like a dental (mandibular) device to move the jaw forward and implants (Inspire) were made to stimulate the tongue automatically. There are also now day-time tongue stimulators!

What’s with these muscles anyway? Sleep essentially leads to muscle collapse. But why to such an extent that it blocks airway and breathing?

One of the pioneers of sleep found that sleep apnea problems start at infancy, from the neuromuscular development of the airway and muscular tone.

How does that happen? In a word, mouth breathing. When one cannot breathe through the nose, whether due to a narrow face, a broken nose, or even aging (menopause)! I myself have a deviated septum.

Open mouth breathing narrows the airway (pharyngeal area) and the jaw falls into the neck, which both increase collapsibility of the airway.

So what can we do? We’ll there’s plenty nasal openers — BreathRight strips and “nose combs.’ And there is another interesting device in Japan…

Designed to reduce snoring and for sleep apnea treatment.

It goes all the way down the nostril — yes it feels a bit weird.

The benefit is that opens a clear airway through my nose! One night my “snoring” events have gone down 50%. Let’s see if I can get it down further.