Services We Offer For Sleep Apnea
Our comprehensive services will meet you at every step in your journey to having better sleep quality. They include:
Calgary's Leading Sleep Apnea Clinic: Expert Care & Solutions
START SLEEPING BETTER Macleod Trail Dental is dedicated to helping you sleep better. We provide comprehensive testing and diagnostics to identify the cause of your sleep apnea and offer tailored treatments, ensuring you do not go another night suffering through disruptive sleep.
Comprehensive Diagnostic Services
Our journey with you starts with diagnostics and testing to understand the cause and severity of your sleep apnea so we can work out the right treatment for you. We offer both Home Sleep Apnea Testing (HSAT) and In-lab PSG.
- Home Sleep Apnea Testing (HSAT): We provide portable devices that allow testing for sleep apnea from the comfort of your home. The device will monitor your heart rate, airflow, oxygen levels, restlessness, and snoring. Then, our sleep specialist will use the data to diagnose how severe your sleep apnea is.
- In-lab Polysomnography (PSG): You’ll stay overnight in our clinic, where we test you for sleep apnea. We’ll test your brain activity, heart rate, airflow, oxygen levels, and restlessness. Then, we’ll use the data to diagnose the severity of your sleep apnea.
Exceptional Treatment Options
After understanding your problem, our sleep specialists offer tailored treatment to help you sleep better and reduce problems associated with disruptive sleep. Our exceptional treatment options include:
- Customized CPAP therapy solutions: We offer Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) solutions when needed. We provide a CPAP machine and a “mask” that is right for you to deliver continuous air pressure during your sleep to prevent airway collapse that causes sleep apnea.
- Oral appliances tailored to individual needs: Not everyone with sleep apnea needs CPAP. Depending on your diagnosis, we can provide you with custom oral appliances for sleep apnea. The appliance will help reposition your lower jaw and tongue to keep your airway open during sleep.
- Lifestyle modifications: Our sleep physician will tell you the changes you can make to your daily life to reduce the severity of sleep apnea and enjoy good sleep.
Ongoing patient support and monitoring
We stay with you all the way, continuously monitoring your situation to ensure your treatment is effective. We schedule follow-up appointments, conduct titration studies, and use other techniques to address any issue that may arise and optimize treatment outcomes.
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Why is it important to treat sleep apnea
Sleep apnea is a serious sleep disorder that can cause different health problems. Here are some reasons you should treat sleep apnea.
- Patients with sleep apnea can stop breathing several times during a night’s sleep. This can deprive the brain of oxygen, making it unable to work properly in sending signals to the rest of the body.
- Untreated sleep apnea can cause various heart problems. This is because oxygen is essential for the proper functioning of the heart, and sleep apnea can cause low oxygen levels. Low oxygen levels in the blood increase the heart’s workload and can cause irregular electrical signaling in the heart, leading to irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmias). It can also lead to hypertension and heart failure.
- Sleep apnea leads to insulin resistance. Since insulin resistance is a precursor to type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea can put you at an increased risk of diabetes.
Why Choose Macleod Trail Dental For Sleep Apnea Treatment?
Comprehensive Sleep Services
We offer diagnostic services, treatment options, and ongoing patient support for various sleep disorders.
State-of-the-Art Facilities
Our clinic uses advanced diagnostic and treatment technologies to enhance the accuracy of sleep tests and the effectiveness of treatments.
Affordable Sleep Apnea Treatment
We care for your pocket as much as we do your health, so we make treatment as cost-effective as possible.
Direct Insurance Billing
We can send your bills directly to your insurance, reducing your out-of-pocket costs and saving you the hassle of filing a claim yourself.
FAQs
A bed partner can observe the breathing pauses. However, the best way to tell if you have sleep apnea is to come to our clinic for diagnostic tests.
There are three main types of sleep apnea as follows:
- Central sleep apnea: This happens because the brain does not send the right signals to muscles that support breathing. It will cause you to stop breathing for short periods during sleep, making you quickly awaken and gasp for breath.
- Obstructive sleep apnea: This happens when the throat muscles relax during sleep, reducing the size of your airway.
- Complex sleep apnea syndrome: This happens when an individual has obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea at the same time.
Several factors increase your risk of developing sleep apnea. These include:
- Obesity: Slim people can develop sleep apnea, but obesity increases the risk because fat deposits around the upper airway can lead to obstructions in breathing.
- Thick neck: Thicker necks can lead to narrower airways.
- Narrow airways: Tonsils or adenoids in airways can obstruct breathing and cause sleep apnea.
- Women: Women are three times more likely to develop obstructive sleep apnea compared to men.
- Age: As people grow older, they have a higher risk of developing sleep apnea. This is why sleep apnea is prevalent among Canadian adults.
- Nasal congestion: People who (for any reason) struggle to breathe through the nose are more likely to develop obstructive sleep apnea.
- Genetics: You have a high risk of developing sleep apnea if your family has a history of the condition.
- Alcohol and drug use: Using these substances before going to bed can cause the muscles in your throat to relax during sleep.
- Smoking: Smoking or vaping increases inflammation and fluid retention in the upper airway. So, smokers are three times more likely to develop sleep apnea.
- Heart disorders: Problems like congestive heart failure increase the risk of central sleep apnea.
- History of stroke: People who have suffered a stroke have a higher chance of developing central sleep apnea
There are different dental signs that can show you have sleep apnea. So, a dentist can help diagnose sleep apnea. A dentist trained in oral sleep appliances can also help you treat sleep apnea using specialized dental appliances.
Ignoring sleep apnea symptoms comes with different side effects. These include:
- Waking up to a sore throat or dry mouth
- Waking up feeling tired even after sleeping all night
- Excessive sleepiness during the day
- Increased risk of motor-related injuries
- Difficulty concentrating and memory loss
- Irregular heartbeat, hypertension, and heart failure
- Depression
- Type 2 diabetes
- Chronic acid reflux
- Decreased overall well-being
Sleep apnea can lead to several life-threatening conditions, such as stroke, heart attack, high blood pressure, and diabetes. So, while sleep apnea itself will not kill you, it can cause problems that can kill you.
Your life expectancy significantly reduces when you have a problem that can kill you. Since sleep apnea can lead to life-threatening conditions (like heart disease and high blood pressure), untreated sleep apnea jeopardizes your life.
Yes, dental appliances work for sleep apnea. They can move your jaw forward to increase the size of your upper airway. This allows air to pass through freely, preventing the muscles in your throat from over-relaxing and collapsing to cause sleep apnea.
Boil and bite appliances do not fit like custom-made appliances, so they do not effectively reposition your jaw to free up your airway. Thus, these DIY appliances are not effective for sleep apnea. In fact, they can worsen the problem or create entirely new problems.
The most effective treatment for sleep apnea depends on the cause and severity of the problem. However, sleep mouthguards made by a dentist trained in oral sleep appliance therapy (particularly mandibular advancement techniques) are usually very effective.
A CPAP machine makes your mouth dry out faster during sleep, and a dry mouth increases the chances of getting more cavities. So, a CPAP machine can increase the chance of tooth decay.
Yes, we accept assigned insurance proceeds. We also accept cheques, Visa, Mastercard, AmEx (American Express), and debit.
You do not need a doctor’s referral to reach us. However, it is best to know your family physician, so we’ll furnish them with a copy of the initial consultation for your files.
You can contact us at any time to set up an appointment. Simply call our office at 403-253-1248. Alternatively, contact us via email ([email protected]) or our online form, and we’ll contact you directly to set up an appointment.