How to Quit/Stop Snoring #2

 

Chapter Two

Snoring and Surgery

 

Living in the twenty-first century affords wonderful advances in medicine and surgery.  Snoring is something that has plagued mankind since time immemorial.  A person who snores in this day and age does is lucky in the sense that the impact of snoring is really starting to be understood.  Before taking any approach to stop snoring, take advantage of what the medical community has to offer; find out why you are snoring.  Knowing the root cause behind a snore will help to point you in the right direction as to how to eliminate or mitigate the snore as much as possible.  Available options for relief can include allergy medicine up to surgery, although surgery for snoring is rarely if ever the best choice.

 

Snoring Does Not Equal Surgery

Surgery is often considered to be the ultimate remedy to many of life’s problems.  This does not always apply to snoring.  In fact, the nature of surgery and snoring do not really go too well together.  Surgery should be considered as the very last resort for several reasons.  There are risks involved with any surgical process, and in many cases, these risks are outweighed by the benefits; but this is usually the case where there are few if any other options to taking care of a problem that is affecting a person’s health and well being.

 

Snoring Surgery

Surgery is an exploratory process.  The very nature of what surgery it seems somewhat counterproductive to solving something like snoring, especially when there are other methods to address the issue that are much less invasive and can be just as successful.  Surgery causes scarring, and because it is an exploratory process, there is no way to know what a doctor is going to encounter until they are in the process of cutting and opening up the patient.  Surgery can often be the actual cause of snoring after going through a procedure such as a rhinoplasty.

The truth is that surgeries performed to resolve issues with snoring have not always yielded the desired result for a large percentage of people who have had it.  Surgery for snoring is not a common process and is not as reliable as some surgical procedures that are performed regularly.  Because snoring is the result of tissue blocking the air passage, the surgical answer is to remove any excess tissue that may be causing the blockage.

For certain people, this may be a reasonable and acceptable answer to their snoring problem, but this is most definitely not the case for the majority of people who snore.  Keep in mind that snoring is not always the source of the problem; snoring is more often, if not most often a symptom of something else in the body.  The cause of individuals snoring issue is going to be unique and distinct to each person, therefore, there is not one simple cure-all remedy to take care of every person snoring problem.  The following page contains an example of the complexity involved with snoring and how surgery does not always address the root cause.

An Example: From Snoring to Insurance

 

Let’s look at something simple and non-medical: car insurance.  Let’s take 20 people who are considered bad drivers by their insurance companies.  As a result of that dubious distinction, all of these drivers are going to face a premium increase of $500 when their insurance is renewed.

 

Now, seen at a distance, it might appear as though all of these drivers are in the same boat (or same car, as it were).  And given that assumption, a method to deal with this problem might be to simply give each of these people an extra $500 in cash.  Really, as strange as that sounds, this is a way to solve this problem for each of these 20 drivers: they need to find $500 more to pay their insurance premium, and hence, that is what this so-called solution is going to do.  Yet is this wise?  No!

 

Some of those drivers – probably more than a few of them – are not going to actually correct why they might be classified as a “bad driver” by their insurance company.  They simply won’t know why they’re bad drivers, and hence, some of them will likely remain a “bad driver”, and face higher insurance premiums next year – but this time after a few more accidents or tickets.

 

As you can easily see, the real cause of the so-called “bad driving” isn’t solved when each person is given a nice gift of $500 with which to pay his or her increased insurance premium.  And since the problem isn’t really solved, bad driving can crop up again, and cause financial problems and even worse, it can endanger health and safety.

 

So when people readily turn to trachea tissue-cutting surgery to cure their snoring, they may quite easily be overlooking the real root cause of the snoring; something that may be related to diet, sleep position, jaw or tongue dysfunction, lifestyle, genetics, or be an indication of an even more serious health problem; an indication that could be dangerously suppressed (temporarily, at least), after a seemingly successful surgery.

 

Going to surgery as an easy, off-the-cuff solution for snoring, is like giving these bad drivers $500 in cash.  It may seem to solve their problem, but for many, it will just be a temporary fix; masking even deeper problems that can lead to severe consequences down the road, including Sleep Apnea.

 

Reasons to Deny Surgery for Snoring

Surgery is often prescribed as the first and only solution for a person who has a problem with snoring.  Surgery in many cases, for different ailments, is considered as the first and only form of treatment there might be.  This is not so with snoring.  Where surgery can save lives and minimize suffering, it also comes with costs in addition to the finances involved.  There is a multitude of reasons that surgery should not be considered due to the risks involved with surgery which include the following:

 

• Post-operation cosmetic effects
• Infection
• Scar tissue and inflammation
• Costly follow-up surgical procedures
• Time intensive healing process
• Costly drugs to ease pain and manage to swell
• Potential of damage to speech and tone of voice
• Complications with swallowing
• Potential seepage from wound and haemorrhaging
• Potential for irritating dry mouth
• Potential for severe pain in ears

 

Overview of Surgical Procedures for Snoring

Surgery is a life-saving tool that has saved countless lives, but in this day and age, there is a surgical procedure for just about everything.  Some of these procedures can be frivolous and unnecessary.  When it comes to snoring specifically, surgery is not a guaranteed solution to the problem.  Anyone who deals with snoring either directly or indirectly must be aware of this when looking for a way to fix the problem.  The following examples go over the common surgical procedures for snoring and how they might disappoint the patient.  These examples state the name of the surgical procedure, what it is designed to do and most importantly the many ill effects that have been reported as a result of each respective procedure.

The problems listed as a result of the different surgical processes are serious.  These problems range from finances to long term or permanent issues the patient may have to deal with after undergoing snoring surgery.  What each of these surgeries is actually designed to do can be an absolute turn off, and when you consider the problems associated with them, the compounded effects are something to be gravely considered when there are so many other options available.  Again, this is why in most cases, surgery should be considered as a last resort, if at all.

These are the risks associated with surgical procedures for snoring specifically; other risks are a part of any surgical procedure, but these other kinds of issues cannot be compared to the unique set of problems that snoring creates and the different surgeries designed to fix snoring.  Cost, for example, is always an issue but should be taken into account for an issue like snoring whereas, for an issue like cancer, or a failing organ, the cost must be incurred to preserve and improve life.  Another risk is anaesthesia.  Being “put under” for surgery is not always the case, but for any kind of major surgery, it is the case.  Having surgery performed for snoring would require this and anaesthesia has been known to result in complications if not death in some instances.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Name of Surgery		Designed to…		Reported Problems…
Tracheostomy		Create an opening in the trachea (sometimes this is called a tracheotomy)		û  irritating to tissues and possible scarring û  requires follow-up surgery û  nasal secretions can clog air pipe and lead to breathing difficulties
UPPP (Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty)		expand the airway and end snoring		û  expensive û  may require follow-up surgery if obstruction occurs again û  post-operation infection û  possible speech defects û  higher than normal haemorrhage risk û  swallowing problems û  not effective for Sleep Apnea
LAUP (Laser-Assisted Uvuloplasty)	Uses lasers to remove the uvula and obstructing tissues, without removing tonsils or lateral tissues		û  dry mouth û  Changes to voice (to be avoided by people who require their voice to earn their living!) û  pain in the ears û  unpredictable success rate û  can mask deeper problems and/or lead to new complications
CAPSO (Cautery-assisted palatal stiffening operation)	Burns the palate to stiffen it against vibration, and removes the mucosa along with the uvula.		û  post-operation discomfort and pain û  currently in experimental stages (unproven) û  difficulty predicting if surgery will be successful û  expensive

 

 

Aside from these examples, there are other new kinds of snore specific surgeries that have been developed which include somnoplasty and snoreplasty.  These procedures are new and as yet unproven to have any kind of reliable success rate in addition to not knowing what any long term effects may arise from these kinds of surgeries for snoring.

In general, surgery is a good thing, a very good thing; but this does not mean that surgery is the best step to take when looking to resolve an issue with snoring.  To be clear; there are cases where surgery is absolutely the best possible solution for a person suffering from snoring and the positive effects resound just like the negative ones did when snoring was causing loss of sleep and all the negative health issues and frames of mind that go along with that.

Luckily there are other options available.  Non-surgical answers to snoring abound, some of these remedies have been around for a long time, while others are relatively new.  These less invasive steps to alleviating snoring are where the majority of relief from snoring comes from.  Countless people use these alternative methods with great success around the world, making it easier for them and those around them to sleep and feel good which we will now take a look at.