Snoring Without
Sleep Apnea

Understanding Why You Snore

A range of issues can disrupt your ability to sleep. Some are easier to treat than others. If you are suffering from one of the conditions below, seek the help you need as soon as possible so you can stop snoring and get back to a good night's sleep.

At the TMJ & Sleep Therapy Centre of North Texas, Dr. Krish can help identify the underlying cause of your snoring and recommend the most effective treatment approach for your specific situation.

Sinusitis & Inflamed Nasal Passages

Blockage of the nasal passages isn't necessary for restricted air flow. It's also possible for the nasal cavity to be obstructed due to the nasal passages becoming generally inflamed due to sinusitis, a highly common illness that afflicts tens of millions of Americans at any given time.

Sinusitis can be diagnosed one of several ways:

• Visual exam by a physician. Usually a quick exam is all that's needed, but occasionally a doctor may need to perform a nasal endoscopy: a thin, flexible tube with a small camera on the end is inserted to allow the doctor to see the nasal passages more clearly.
• In case of abnormalities or unexplained complications, a CT scan can reveal details about your sinuses and nasal area that aren't always spotted with a simple physical exam.
• An allergy test via a skin exam can reveal if allergens have triggered inflamed nasal passages.
• Nasal and sinus samples. Usually lab tests aren't necessary, but if your condition isn't responding to treatment or is getting worse, tissue samples can point to a specific cause, such as a bacterial infection.

A Long Soft Palate

In some cases, the culprit is your anatomy. Specifically, if your soft palate is unusually long, the tissue in that region might be longer and more prone to blocking your airway at night, making you particularly prone to experience sleep apnea.

If you have a particularly long soft palate, you have a few different treatment options:

Poor Muscle Tone in Throat & Tongue

It's one thing if tissue in the palate becomes loose. But what if tissue in your mouth becomes loose because your throat is out of shape? Believe it or not, lack of muscle tone in your throat and tongue can result in the tissue in those areas becoming loose enough to result in airway blockage and snoring.

Treatment for poor muscle tone is the same as with other parts of the body: exercise. There are specific daily exercises that can be done for the tongue and throat to improve muscle tone and reduce snoring. One particular exercise: regular focused singing of diverse sounds, including vowels, may improve overall muscle tone and cut down on snoring.

Weight Gain

In pop culture, snoring is closely connected to being overweight, and for good reason. In many cases of obesity, enough fat collects in the neck and chin areas to act as an obstruction when lying down, resulting in snoring.

In this case, the obvious long-term solution is weight loss. However, a useful short-term fix is a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine. This approach, which involves wearing a mask while sleeping, creates constant positive air pressure in the airway to help the breathing process. While it doesn't treat the underlying cause, it's a way to get around the symptom for a good night's rest.

Allergies & Seasonal Rhinitis

Every spring, drugstores and pharmacies experience a run on antihistamines, decongestants, cough drops and other over-the-counter medications by all those poor folks who just can't stop sneezing. As allergy sufferers can readily attest, allergies cause inflammation in the throat and nasal passages. If it gets bad enough, it can cause enough airway obstruction to cause snoring.

If your allergies are more seasonal in nature, you're probably suffering from seasonal allergic rhinitis – a.k.a. hay fever – brought on by excess airborne pollen and mold. If your allergy symptoms are present year-round, you may have perennial allergic rhinitis, which can be caused by animal fur, household dust mites and sometimes by excess airborne mold.

Many cases of allergies are fairly easily treated via OTC medications, and once you can get the inflammation to subside, the snoring tends to work itself out. More severe cases may require some sort of a nasal steroid spray. However, if the normal array of medications won't make a dent, you may require treatment from an allergist for a stronger, more specialized treatment such as prescription anti-allergy injections or environmental control measures you can implement in your home and surroundings. Once you get the allergies under control, your good night's sleep should return.