SECTION 4: NON-SURGICAL REMEDIES

As noted previously, there is a range of proven and effective methods to stop snoring that don’t involve surgery of any kind. This is welcome news to those who wish to seek a non-surgical alternative for any number of reasons, including:

• the high cost of surgery
• the vulnerability to post-surgery complications
• potential post-surgery side effects (noted in Section 3)
• potential medication requirements that can have additional side effects
• potential masking of other problems, of which snoring was a symptom, not a cause

In this section, we’ll look at key categories of non-surgical snoring treatment options. These categories are:

1. Drug Therapies
2. Devices
3. Appliances
4. Lifestyle Changes: Diet
5. Lifestyle Changes: Exercise
6. Sleeping Positions
7. Alternative Therapies

While any of these treatments may be effective, and possibly more than one (since some of them are closely related), it’s critically important that you monitor your snoring to ensure that you are making measurable progress towards your (or your partners!) stop-snoring goals.

In other words: some of these non-surgical treatments might work better for you than others; and it’s important that you carefully investigate your options fully in order to find the solution that works best for you.

Drug Therapies

For many people, medically prescribed pharmaceuticals and drugs provide some relief from snoring, and snoring-related complications.

Essentially, these drugs endeavor to achieve three things:

• open the nasal passage
• stimulate respiration
• prevent the deep occurrence of Rapid Eye Movement (R.E.M.) sleep

As you can well imagine, there are some pretty significant concerns that come to mind when looking at #3 on that list; after all, R.E.M. sleep is vital to the body’s restorative process, and people who are chronically unable to achieve the R.E.M. state during sleep often experience an array of health problems, including emotional and psychological dysfunctions.

However, some anti-snoring drugs do try to limit the depths to which a snorer can enter the R.E.M. phase of sleep, thereby alleviating some of the deep, over-relaxation that occurs in the body; particularly in the throat area.

Recall that one of the reasons alcohol and sedatives promote and/or enhance snoring is because they over-relax the body (i.e. the body becomes relaxed beyond its optimal level; the last time you tried to wake up a drunk person should remind you of this basic fact of human biology). In the same way, some medications, to some degree, aim to prevent deep, deep R.E.M. sleep.

Some drugs are available over-the-counter; in particular, those designed to un-clog nasal passageways. These are typically designed for people suffering from a cold or flu, but some snorers find relief from using these decongestants and antihistamines.

It’s also worth mentioning saline sprays, which are not drugs at all (it’s just salt water), but are often included in this category because they’re often found at drug stores. Saline sprays help keep the mucus membranes moist, and thus cut down on vibration by keeping the airway open and unclogged.

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