Dental Procedure Eases Edina Man's Snoring Problem
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - About 40 percent of American adults are snorers. About half of loud snorers have sleep apnea. And as you, or your sleeping partner, may know, it can make daytime functioning exhausting.
You've probably seen the CPAP devices used to help people sleep. Now, there's a new approach to helping people with apnea and/or snoring problems. It's performed by a dentist, but only a few dentists are trained in the technique.
There are a lot of things that 59-year-old Paul Joy of Edina enjoys doing. Dental work is not one of them.
"I have an unnatural fear of dentists and doctors," he said.
But it won't keep him away.
He's been treated for years for snoring. His brothers say they used to hear the noise from three doors down the hall.
"Prior to the CPAP, I snored like a freight train," Joy said.
Joy sells CPAPS by day and sleeps in one by night. He says his snoring is taken care of, but he heard about something that could make his breathing even better.
"I asked [to] come and see him and try this," he said. "I'd like to see if it could make a difference for me."
St. Louis Park dentist, Dr. Telly Pappas is the only dentist in the Twin Cities trained on the Nightlase technique that Joy had heard about.
"I'm not going to call it a cure," Pappas said. "I'm going to call it an adjunct to help you breathe better, to help you sleep better, to help you snore less."
Joy calls it a procedure that works.
"You can physically feel a difference when you inhale and exhale," he said.
The way it works is a small invisible laser constricts the soft palate of the roof of the mouth, leaving more space between the tongue and a larger airway.
As people age, skin on the roof of their mouth starts to sag, just like skin on the face causing more snoring and impaired breathing.
"It'll tighten it up and convert it into a younger collagen, so the body physiologically [transitions] back to a tighter tissue," Pappas said.
And it seems it may have worked on Paul.
Nightlase takes about 15 to 20 minutes in the chair. But just like botox, this youthful fix is temporary and skin starts to sag again over time, Joy just got his first touch up a year after his first procedure.
"I could feel the difference within 20 minutes of having it done," he said.
He said he can now sleep on his back and breathe much easier, and despite his fear of doctors, he says the pain is minimal.
"You can't feel it as much as you could feel a mosquito biting you," he said.
Pappas said results vary and the procedure doesn't seem to work as well on diabetes patients or overweight patients. And some people use it in combination with other treatments.
But Joy insists he's found some extra breathing room.
"I can take a bigger breath," he said.
We also spoke Dr. Michael Howell, a sleep specialist and neurologist at the University of Minnesota, about Nightlase.
He gave us this statement:
"Tightening the soft palate with lasers to treat snoring is a promising idea and may lead to less snoring. However, all procedures and medical interventions have some risks to them and caution is warranted particularly if there is a concern for sleep apnea, a more severe breathing disorder. People who have been told that they stop breathing at night or are excessively sleepy during the day should talk to their doctor about further evaluation."
The procedure is not covered by insurance. It costs around $1,000.
