SolveYourProblem
eLearning Series: Stop Snoring
Stop Snoring Now & Sleep Better Tonight
Learn which sleep aids could be best for you
SNORING
SURGERY REVIEWS
It’s necessary
and well-worth repeating (sorry, but it is…) that, overall,
surgery is often a truly wondrous means
of solving, or at least alleviating, some serious health
problems.
Nobody wants to return to a pre-surgical world, where procedures
that are swiftly addressed today would otherwise render a
sufferer in agony for years; or perhaps even hasten an early
death.
So it should not be surmised that the view in this guide
is that surgery is inherently bad; because it’s not. But
surgery is simply a tool, and one that should be used only
when necessary (not unlike any other tool).
The problem is that some people rely on surgery as an automatic
fix. What’s that old saying: if all you have is a hammer
in your hand, then everything looks like a nail? For some
people, this is regrettably true when it comes to surgery;
every health ailment that they see is worthy of surgery.
Yet these same people would probably seriously reconsider
their views when faced with the substantiated evidence that
surgery is not often working for snorers (and their loved
ones).
The following
is a rundown of the most common snoring surgeries;
and why they aren’t working as well as people
expect them to.
| Name Of Surgery |
Designed To... |
Reported Problems... |
| Tracheostomy |
Create an opening in the
trachea (sometimes this is called a tracheotomy) |
- irritating to tissues
and possible scarring
- requires follow-up surgery
- nasal
secretions can clog air pipe and lead to breathing
difficulties
|
UPPP
(Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty) |
Expand the airway and end
snoring |
- expensive
- may require
follow-up surgery of obstruction occurs again
- post-operation
infection
- possible speech defects
- higher
than normal hemorrhage risk
- swallowing problems
- not
effective for Sleep Apnea
|
LAUP
(Laser Assisted Uvuloplasty) |
Uses lasers to remove uvula
and obstructing tissues, without removing tonsils or
lateral tissues |
- dry mouth
- changes to voice
(to be avoided by people who require their voice
to earn their living!)
- pain in the ears
- unpredictable
success rate
- can mask deeper problems
and/or lead to new complications
|
CAPSO
(Cautery-assisted
palatal stiffening operation) |
Burns the palate in order
to stiffen it against vibration, and removes the mucosa
along the uvula |
- post-operation discomfort
and pain
- currently in experimental
stages (unproven)
- difficulty predicting
if surgery will be successful
- expensive
|
And there are a few new surgical options that are gaining
some attention, including somnoplasty and snoreplasty.
Like CAP SO, these procedures are unproven and the success
rate, and long-term impact, is not yet known.
Overall, then, while snoring surgery can be useful and effective
for some sufferers (and their families, roommates, neighbors,
heck, even their pets!), it’s clear that surgery has not
proven to a panacea, offering risk-free cures for this dangerous,
and potentially life-affecting condition.
Fortunately,
however, there are some proven non-surgical remedies –
some quite old and some rather new – that are
helping hundreds of millions of people deal effectively,
responsibly, and safely with their snoring problem. We now
look at several of those non-surgical remedies in Section
4 of this online guide.
 
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