Lose Weight = No Snoring.

Our top three snoring misconceptions for this series:

1. Snoring doesn’t affect me, it just bothers my bedmate.
2. I don’t think a “simple fix” will actually work. And I don’t want to change my lifestyle or undergo a painful surgery.
3. All I need to do is lose some weight and then I’ll stop snoring.

It’s true that for some, excess body weight is one factor that can contribute to snoring. Fatty tissue in your airways vibrates as you breathe. It may surprise you to learn, however, that snoring can be a complex problem, with many contributing factors. These factors may include obstruction of nasal passages, enlarged uvula or tonsils, lifestyle and diet, or any combination of the above.

While losing some pounds could help make your snoring problem better, it is rarely the case that losing weight will make your snoring go away. At Sereno, we’ve treated patients at the pinnacle of good health–tri-athletes, marathoners, and cyclists with little or no excess body fat--who were plagued by snoring. Despite a regimen of proper diet, regular exercise and generally healthy activity, many people snore, and live with the consequences of snoring on a daily basis.

You can meet some of these people in our patient testimonial videos at www.serenocenter.com.

Further, studies indicate that snoring is problem that needs to be addressed. Lack of sleep doesn’t just cause nighttime disturbances for you and your bed partner. Most of the ill effects of snoring occur while you are awake. According to a study just completed in 2010 by the National Sleep Foundation, 65-70% of the ill effects of snoring occur while you are awake. These ill effects can include decrease in productivity, headaches, constant fatigue, lack of energy and irritability for both you and your bed partner. These issues won’t go away unless you fix your snoring.

Most commonly, snoring tends to be a multi-faceted problem. The best way to identify your snoring issue, and to realize the optimal result, begins with a simple examination by a board certified Otolaryngologist which will help you understand what causes your snoring, and how it can be fixed or improved.

The bottom line is that sometimes otherwise healthy people snore. So if you’ve lost some weight and still are not getting restful sleep, don’t be discouraged. Sereno can help. Call us today.

Simple Fixes

Continuing from our Snoring Misconceptions from last week, this week we have:

I don’t think a “simple fix” will actually work. And I don’t want to change my lifestyle or undergo a painful surgery.

There’s a big difference between a snorer who just snores and one who also suffers from a serious health condition like severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) (I’m talking about apnea worse than a mild to moderate case).

Both scenarios have consequences for your health. But distinguishing between the two is important because different problems can compel different treatments. Chances are that the invasive, life-altering therapies you’re strongly adverse to are actually designed to treat the latter more severe case. Simpler, less invasive options exist for people who just snore and/or have mild to moderate OSA.

Medical technology has come a long way in recent years. Advances like the Pillar Procedure have made it easy for patients to have their snoring treated in a single office visit and leave with little to no discomfort.

And the size of this group of potential candidates is not insignificant. In 80% of cases, the primary contributor of snoring is the soft palate, which is an area in the mouth that the Pillar Procedure is specifically designed to treat. That’s why more than 40,000 people have been successfully treated with the Pillar Procedure and the results speak for themselves.

So don’t let a healthy dose of skepticism prevent you from actually learning about the minimally invasive treatments that could be right for you.

Snoring Misconceptions

I’ve seen a lot of patients in the past 10 years and heard just about every misconception about snoring that can make people reluctant to seek treatment. I plan to cover a variety of misconceptions and the truth behind them. One of them might strike a chord with you and make you rethink that it's possible to solve your snoring problem (or someone you love).

This week:
Snoring doesn’t affect me, it just bothers my bedmate.

Another way to say to say this is you personally don’t care enough about your snoring to fix it. The short answer is – you should. Snoring is a leading cause of resentment in marriages. This isn’t all that surprising when you learn that people who share a bed with a snorer lose about an hour of sleep per night. Ultimately, 23% of couples sleep in separate rooms on a regular or even daily basis . . . not a great solution to a problem that can often be easily treated.

If consideration for your bed partner isn’t enough to motivate you to seek treatment, do it for your own health. And I’m not referring to a few sore ribs from the nightly elbow jabs. Hormone imbalance, weight gain, Type II diabetes, high blood pressure and coronary artery disease have all been linked to unrestful sleep. So don’t take it lightly. It’s in your best interest to find out your treatment options.

Next week we look at "Simple Fixes" and if they actually work.

In the Beginning: Debbie’s Story

The word “snoring” might sound silly to you. It’s a source of plenty of jokes, cartoons and bloopers. But for most people personally affected by snoring, it isn’t funny at all. It’s a pervasive problem that causes embarrassment, relationship troubles, struggles at work, lower quality of life, and serious health issues. That is the harsh reality of snoring. And that’s the one that we, at Sereno, understand and devoted ourselves to improving over a year ago.

It’s hard to laugh when you’re sitting across from a woman so distraught by her husband’s snoring and so desperate for a solution that she’s literally in tears. That was Debbie. We met Debbie last year when we were conceptualizing Sereno and, as part of the process, spoke to hundreds of people who suffered directly or indirectly, as a result of snoring. Married to her husband, Rick, for 15 years, Debbie’s marriage had been deeply affected by Rick’s snoring. Rick had tried all kinds of techniques to alleviate it–various pillows, nose strips, mouth guards, etc. None of them worked. He tried sleeping with a CPAP mask, but couldn’t stand to have it on his face.

Ear plugs were Debbie’s only saving grace. They were the only thing that helped her to sleep through Rick’s snoring, at least part of the time, so they could maintain some level of intimacy. But ear plugs were not a perfect solution for Debbie. A loving aunt to her sister’s two children, Debbie’s sister was not comfortable allowing the kids stay at Debbie and Rick’s house overnight. She feared that Debbie’s ear plugs and Rick’s snoring would prevent them from hearing the kids cry or a fire alarm sound. Debbie cried as she described how Rick’s snoring was preventing them from becoming closer to their niece and nephew. At the time, we could only offer her a tissue.

Today, we can do much more. Sereno was created to help Debbie and the millions of people like her in search of a viable solution to a snoring problem. But first, we must fill an educational void. Snorers need to understand two important things: first, snoring is a complex problem and often has multiple contributing factors. Second, despite the complexity of the problem, a number of clinically proven, simple, minimally invasive and virtually painless solutions do exist. When we conceptualized Sereno, our goal was to bring these facts to the forefront so we could have a meaningful impact on people’s lives. We’re proud to say that’s exactly what we’re doing today.

So if you suffer from snoring, we understand your plight. And we’re here to help. If you’d like to share your story with the Sereno team, call us at (415) 525-8400.