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Snoring & Sleep Apnea
Snoring & Sleep Apnea
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What is making the noise?What you are hearing is the sound of vibration of one or more structures in the airway. The most common location of snoring is the soft palate and uvula, that dangling thing in the back of your throat. Other common areas of vibration are the walls of the throat just behind the soft palate (roof of your mouth) or just behind your tongue. This area is called the lateral walls of the pharynx. The base of the tongue can also vibrate and make noise. Often multiple sites are involved, however the palatal vibration is usually the loudest and the first one addressed when treating snoring.
Just knowing and treating the site of snoring can lead to a lot of unhappy patients. Without treating the cause of snoring, the snoring often returns even with the most aggressive treatment.
What causes snoring?The vibration is caused by rapid pressure changes in the airway. Ever heard of the Bernoulli effect? If you have taken an airplane you have experienced it. That’s right, the same thing that allows airplanes to fly causes snoring. The Bernoulli effect says that as the speed of air increases, its pressure decreases - creating a sucking effect. The curved shape to the top of an airplane wing makes air travel faster over the top of the wing, creating a negative pressure and pulling the plane into the sky. This effect is also why papers blowing around your car get sucked out when the windows are down.
What we are trying to identify is areas where air travels quickly when you breathe in which happens to be the narrowest areas. The rapid moving air creates the same sucking force in your airway as the top of the airplane wing. As the airway gets sucked closed, airflow stops, pressure returns to normal, and the tissue goes back to their resting place only to be sucked shut again. This happens many times every second to cause the snoring noise. Treating the vibrating part alone might not help these narrow areas, so the sucking force remains. This is one of the reasons why people may say their snoring procedures ‘didn’t work’ (although there are many other factors that cause people to start to snore again).
Where are these narrow areas that cause snoring?
Anywhere and often in multiple areas. The sites are different in everyone. Answering this question requires a full nose and throat examination done by a qualified sleep surgeon.Common anatomical issues that can be identified and treated are:
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