Put a Stop to Snoring

Welcome back. If you constantly have to jab your mate to stop snoring at night, or perhaps your own snores wake you up, there are options to help alleviate the noise. Melissa Wilson asked the doctor about a device that's helping with the problem.

Our viewer, Debbie, wrote to me and asked me, "Help. You've got to find a way to help my husband stop snoring. I haven't slept in a long time." Do you have some ideas for us?

I have some great ideas. There's new dental appliances that you put in your mouth that will help with snoring. And in, I'm going to say about 60 or 70% of cases, it totally eliminates it. So it's a very interesting appliance. We've got some here that we can show you. But these appliances fit one on the upper arch and one on the lower arch. And there's a hook in here. And so this hook fits into this little slot, so it goes right in there. So when it's in your mouth, it pulls your jaw forward and so that opens up your airway. So now you can breathe while you're asleep, and so you stop snoring. The reason you snore is your jaw drops open, your tongue falls back and blocks airway. With your jaw forward, that doesn't happen. So it solves a lot of those problems.

There's two or three types of appliances. This one is called a TAP, T-A-P, appliance. We have another appliance called an EMA and it's very similar. You have an upper appliance and a lower appliance, and then you put these little rubber bands on there that pull your jaw forward.

Now would you be concerned about it changing your bite? If you're pulling that jaw forward, which has sort of an unnatural thing for your mouth to do, is that going to be temporary?

It's temporary. But here's what you have to do. Every morning when you wake up and you take this out, your bite feels way off, because your jaws stuck forward like that. So we give you this little wafer that you put in your mouth and you just chew on it for a few seconds and your jaw settles back into place. Everything's okay. And a lot of people tend to not use their wafer. That's not good. Got to use the wafer.

You've got to use the wafer to make it work. Now, would this help with severe medical problems like sleep apnea?

Yes. It's especially for people that don't want to wear a CPAP machine. And in the CPAP machine, this big mask, it fits over your face and strapped around your head and it's got this big hose and a lot of people refuse to wear it. So I think the CPAP probably works better than the mouthpieces, but if you're not going to use the CPAP, this helps a lot. So it's definitely an adjunct to the whole system.

Powerful information. Thank you.

You're welcome.