We have a 3D CT machine that helps us visualize a patient’s airway. Utilizing that as well as doing examination in the mouth, we are able to determine if someone has a constricted airway or not.
A lot of people have sleep apnea and don’t know it and it affects them on a daily basis. Your overall health is affected by how you sleep. If your body is not getting oxygen while you’re sleeping, it’s not going to recover correctly and you can have problems with your organs and high blood pressure and all kinds of issues.
When we’re able to detect if somebody has sleep apnea, we also are able to treat it initially. We can make you a mouthpiece that usually works for most people to help alleviate some of those sleep apnea symptoms. For some patients who have severely constricted airways, we’re able to refer them to the proper personnel like an ENT where they might need to do different procedures where a mouth guard wouldn’t work for them.