I've been informed by my girlfriend that my snoring is driving her insane. I've been kicked to the couch on numerous occasions and I really don't like it there. I've been searching the web for cures but they all seem kind of fly-by-night. Even the surgery isn't guaranteed from what I understand.
Can anyone please point me in the right direction? I know I can't be the only one here with the problem. I've tried sleeping on my side, sleeping on my stomach and making sure I don't drink any alcohol before bed. It doesn't work for me.
Any advise, witchcraft or other pagan cure would be greatly appreciated.
You gats to get one o’ dem lazer thingies, see, and you hold da mirror with yer left hand and th’ lazer thingee in yore right, and ya jest smoke that leetle sucker in th’ back of yer throte.
People that snore sometimes also have sleep apnia. This means that you stop breathing frequently while you are asleep. The cure is wearing this device that resembles the oxygen masks worn by fighter pilots. The device forces air into your nose and you no longer stop breathing, you also no longer snore either.
This will require a visit to your doctor, a referal to a sleep study clinic and the purchase of the equipment. It is not cheap, insurance sure helps out.
From what I understand of sleep apnea, it includes a bit of non-breathing or choking followed by a huge snore(or snores). I'm told that I don't do that, I just snore away breath after breath.
On the other hand, maybe I could tell her that I'm a fighter pilot and get some freaky fighter-pilot sex? hmmmmm...
My husband and I have a system. It’s called the “I kick you as hard as I can system.” He eventually wakes up and rolls over into a position where he no longer snores. I apparently can snore pretty loud myself. Sometimes I wake myself up. My college roomate complained about it, but she said I didn’t snore if I slept on my stomach. Before you visit a doctor, you might try some different sleep postures, and see if that helps.
When the “I kick you as hard as I can system” fails, we take turns sleeping on the couch. It’s not his fault if he snores, and it’s not my fault that I can’t sleep through it, so we try to spread the sore backs around.
(My hubby uses the Breathe-Right strips that isopropyl mentioned, and he claims they help him, but he’s not the one lying awake at 3 a.m. listening to the sound of someone’s entire respiratory tract vibrating. I don’t think they help at all.)
Being a newlywed who married a snorer (and yes, he’s got apnea, note correct spelling) I’ve found that the best way to deal with it is to wear those small foam earplugs – I recommend the round cylindrical ones that reduce noise by 30 decibels. It doesn’t cut off the sound COMPLETELY (alas!) but does cut it way down. If I need to get up earlier than hubby, I just set my alarm clock to a loud buzz and it never fails. Either I hear it and wake up, or he does, and wakes me up.
Caircair,
You are obviously a much more forgiving person than most I have met. I personally wouldn't expect someone to wear earplugs just so I can saw logs. I agree that it may be a solution but, it's probably one I'd use at the last resort.
Am I the only one on the boards that has this problem? I'd guess that many just don't want to lemme know.
I recommend as a first step a trip to your doc – it could be tonsils and adenoids or sinuses. My s.o. tells me I snore, but I think it happens when I’m congested and breathe through my mouth while sleeping; also, when my sinuses drain (as they’ve been doing for days now) all that crap gets in my throat and I think that makes me snore. I had my tonsils and adenoids out when I was a child, so I know it’s not that, but if you’ve still got yours, that could be the probelem. See your doctor. Even if he can’t find a physical cause, he may be able to presribe or recommend something.
I’ve always been a loud snorer. The stories I could tell. I am a big person and it runs in the family, that would be your first warning sign. Though warned by family members that I exhibited all the signs, I ignored my problem for a long time. I went through the mate on the couch thing as well as grumpy children and dogs. My wake up call came after I wrecked my third vehicle in a two year period by nodding off. Other symptoms could be inappropriate naps, overall tiredness, waking up in a sitting position in the middle of the night. Don’t put it off, snoring is the first tell tale sign.
If you are diagnosed with sleep apnea, there are alternatives to that which has been described, but they entail surgery with questionable results. For me the CPAP was the best alternative because I adapted to the damn thing quite readily. It is a pain, looks funny but it has become my best friend.
The important thing Cobravert is, Do not ignore the warning signs! Sleep apnea, unchecked can cause irreversible damage to your long term health and the short term health of not only yourself, but others accompanying you in your car or to others on the road when you nod off for the first or the last time.
Diagnosis can be expensive, I had no health insurance which is part of the reason I kept putting it off. If you do follow up on this and find yourself in need of a CPAP machine, e-mail me and I will help you find a place which offers used machines for a very nominal sum.
Overweight people snore more than thin ones. Don’t know if it will help you.
What you finding is that there isn’t a good way to stop snoring except the CPAP machine and surgery.
If you sleep on your back and want to stop, try sewing a golf ball into the back of a shirt you can sleep in. When you roll over, you will be uncomfortable enough to roll off your back again.
I am also a snorer, and my fiance is getting sick of it. Apparently I can sleep through the quick kick in the back, and she is getting tired of sleeping on the couch. I can tell you I have tried a product called Snore Enz, a spray that coats the uvula and stops snoring. Besides making me gag, it does nothing. I have also tried some tablets called Stop Snore, also did nothing. I can say that I seem to snore less when I have the windows open at night (here in St. Petersburg, FL, that doesn’t happen for most of the year), and the humidity is high. I don’t have sleep apnea, by the way. Any non-surgical suggestions would be very welcome.
There’s a new non-surgical option on the snoring front - if the soft palate surgery would work for you, the new approach might work, too (without surgery). They inject something into the part of the soft palate that causes the blockage, and it causes the tissue to stiffen enough that it doesn’t slide back. I can’t recall the substance, but it was in use for something else for ages (FDA approved), and has just started to be used for snoring help. You get a sore throat for a day or so, then the snoring slowly goes away. If it doesn’t help enough, then you can still have the surgery. Cheap, out-patient, and minimal risk.
Call the local sleep clinic for more info, that is all I remember about it (it was on the news).
And I definitely recommend doing the sleep clinic route - IIRC, my FIL had apnea and didn’t know it, because it comes in different forms. He didn’t stop breathing, AFAIK, but just didn’t get enough air ALL the time. Got his soft palate trimmed, and no more snoring, plus more energy. MIL loves it!
Oh, and apparently I’m really nice when I’m half-asleep, because my usual reaction to snoring is much more gentle nudge-like than kick-like.
I guess the first thing I’m going to try is put a humidifier in the room I’m sleeping in. It’s pretty dry around here and it just may help. Next, I’ll call a doctor.
I don’t know what other measures you and your husband have taken to deal with his apnea, but I have to advise you to have him see a sleep specialist or a heart/lung specialist. Apnea is more serious than just some annoying snoring. Prolonged histories of apnea can cause heart and brain damage, extreme hypertension and other serious problems. The snoring is the least of the damage that the disorder can do.
Not only does sleep apnea cause internal damage, it’s a really good cause of auto accidents. Drivers who’ve had exactly ZERO REM sleep in the last two weeks are much more likely to fall asleep behind the wheel. I was in three minor (thank god) accidents before I finally made an appointment with a sleep center for testing. They found out that in 3 hours (180 minutes), I’d STOPPED BREATHING 192 times! No REM sleep whatsoever, constant micro-wakeups…nasty. When they put the CPAP on me for the last half of the night, it seemed like I went from head-hitting-pillow to being woken up in the morning between two eyeblinks. The EEG showed solid REM sleep for the entire three hours, just a solid line of black where my brainwaves were in the REM state. It was an incredible eye-opener to me.
