What Type of Doctor Do You See for Sleep Apnea?

Although sleep apnea can be quite serious, it’s possible to treat it professionally and effectively. It can be vital to treat it, as people can develop fatal health problems. Children can develop behavioral disorders too.

Sleep apnea happens when a person is sleeping and their breathing stops and starts repeatedly. Often, people don’t even know that it’s happening unless a sleep partner points it out. It can be difficult to recognize the signs and symptoms of sleep apnea, but some common ones are:

– Occasionally waking up feeling like you’re gasping or choking
– Waking up feeling exhausted even after a good night of sleep
– Snoring loudly
– Restless sleep
– Insomnia
– Recurrent awakenings
– Headaches
– Mood changes
– Decreased sex drive

To complicate things further, there are different types of sleep apnea you should know about.

The most common kind of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep apnea, and it occurs when a patient’s throat muscles relax and/or collapse during sleep, which blocks airflow. Central sleep apnea and complex sleep apnea syndrome are other kinds of sleep apnea. Central sleep apnea occurs when a patient’s brain doesn’t send the proper signals to the muscles that control breathing, while complex sleep apnea syndrome happens when both central and obstructive sleep apnea happen simultaneously. It’s important to treat each kind of sleep apnea properly.

A sleep apnea doctor is fully capable of helping you with a sleep-related issue, including sleep disorders like sleep apnea. However, different sleep apnea doctors may offer different solutions to sleep apnea, such as CPAP therapy or oral appliance therapy. While CPAP therapy works for many patients, it doesn’t work for all, and often oral appliance therapy is the simpler, easier, more comfortable solution for patients. It’s also approved by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Oral appliance therapy is what we provide here at Koala® Center For Sleep & TMJ Disorders.

With oral appliance therapy, a simple oral appliance is used at night to help the patient’s jaw, tongue, and airway rest in their natural positions. This is quite often all that’s necessary for the patient. The treatment is effective for obstructive sleep apnea and can help with complex sleep apnea syndrome too. When you come see one of our sleep apnea doctors here at Koala® Center For Sleep & TMJ Disorders, we’ll tell you everything there is to know about oral appliance therapy.

We do! Our clinic has sleep apnea doctors at multiple locations in the US. We have locations in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin and their addresses and contact information are available on our Appointments page. We invite you to contact us at one of these locations for a consultation, or you can call us. Get in touch with us today to book with one of our sleep apnea doctors near you. We look forward to seeing you and helping you with your sleep issue soon!