2322 196th St. SW, Suite 201 Lynnwood, WA 98036
- (425) 361-7499
2322 196th St. SW, Suite 201 Lynnwood, WA 98036
Airway Centered Expert in Lynnwood near Bothell, Mill Creek, Brier, and Mountlake Terrace
Dr. David Buck has had comprehensive training in dental sleep medicine. He and his team can work with you to manage the serious disease of sleep apnea.
Dr. Buck is also part of a collaborative team consisting of sleep physicians, sleep techs, sleep centers, ENT physicians and pulmonologists who all combine their expertise where needed to maximally manage obstructive sleep apnea and snoring.
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) threatens the health and well-being of millions of Americans. When breathing is obstructed during sleep, the amount of oxygen coming into the body is reduced, creating toxic health conditions. Sleep apnea sufferers labor to breath while sleeping and the body does not rest or sleep properly to refresh itself. This affects a person’s health, daily function, work performance, relationships and overall well-being. Sleep apnea is much more than annoying snoring. It is potentially life-threatening.
A sleep study can determine which kind of sleep apnea a person has. In the cases of Obstructive Sleep Apnea, the soft tissues around the throat collapse during sleep to cause an obstructed airway. This includes the tongue falling back out of position to create the airway obstruction. This happens then the jaw is underdeveloped, not leaving enough space for the tongue. Epigenetic science can make room for the tongue by fully developing the jaw bones, thus eliminating the obstruction.
The Greek word “apnea” literally means “without breath.” There are three types of apnea: obstructive, central, and mixed; of the three, obstructive is the most common. Despite the difference in the root cause of each type, in all three, people with untreated sleep apnea stop breathing repeatedly during their sleep, sometimes hundreds of times during the night and often for a minute or longer.
Sleep apnea is very common, as common as adult diabetes, according to the National Institutes of Health. Risk factors include being male, overweight, and over the age of forty. However, sleep apnea can strike anyone at any age, even children. Yet still because of the lack of awareness by the public and healthcare professionals, the vast majority of suffers remain undiagnosed and therefore untreated, despite the fact that this serious disorder can have significant, and deadly consequences.
New evidence clearly shows that certain facial types, such as retruded and narrowed jaws and long faces, can put a child at risk for developing chronic health problems known to be associated with compromised nasal breathing during both wakefulness and sleep.
It is therefore imperative that pediatric dentists, pediatricians and care givers recognize these early warning signs.
Dr. Buck may recommend a sleep physician to administer a take home sleep study to screen and make initial evaluation of sleep disordered breathing. Depending on the results, the sleep physician may advise the need for an overnight in lab study or may qualify the patient for oral appliance therapy.
Alternatively, if no PSG has been completed, Dr. Buck will require referral to a sleep center for completion of a PSG and physician interpretation before oral appliance therapy begins. It is critical to carefully and thoroughly manage this deadly disease with a team approach.
Oral appliance therapy (OSA) is very effective, safe and very well tolerated by patients. These appliances are medically tested and certified as effective in the management of mild to moderate OSA. It is critical to understand that “snoring” guards, or other over the counter devices, including snoring remedies are dangerous at best. The disease of OSA is not a social nuisance, but rather a deadly disease if not treated. By simply attempting to treat snoring, a patient may unintentionally worsen the condition, and hasten serious medical complications.
Dr. Buck also strongly believes that OAT is not intended to supersede or compete with proper management of OSA by CPAP. Some dental sleep treatments are marketed as replacing properly fitted and adjusted CPAP by qualified sleep physicians, this is not in the patient’s best interest.
Take home studies are a good baseline and tool for progress, should not be substituted for medically supervised PSG. Dr. Buck believes all suspect OSA should be diagnosed properly by physicians, and management should be a collaborative, team approach for the best results. Poorly-treated OSA, will still lead to very undesirable medical complications, or contribute to other deadly diseases such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, stroke and cardiovascular disease.
OAT has few complications. These would include slight movement of teeth and opening of contacts (space between teeth); increase in untreated TMJ related pain such as headaches, jaw and tooth pain, joint pain; changes in bite making the bite not as uniform as before OAT. These are acceptable complications given the serious nature of untreated or poorly treated chronic OSA. Since Dr. Buck is a TMJ expert, he can assist in treating this condition, which commonly accompanies OSA. If TMJ problems were unrecognized before OSA treatment, OAT may unveil this and require subsequent management.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is caused by a blockage of the airway, usually when the soft tissue in the rear of the throat collapses and closes during sleep. In central sleep apnea, the airway is not blocked but the brain fails to signal the muscles to breathe. Mixed apnea, as the name implies, is a combination of the two. With each apnea event, the brain briefly arouses people with sleep apnea in order for them to resume breathing, but consequently sleep is extremely fragmented and of poor quality.
