If you have ever worn a custom orthodontic retainer, orthotic for nighttime teeth grinding or an athletic mouth guard, you have an idea what it is like to wear one of these oral appliances. Oral appliances can vary in design as there are over 100 types. All of them simulate the CPR jaw thrust advancing the lower jaw to open your airway.

Excerpts from the Clinical Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Snoring with Oral Appliance Therapy: An Update for 2015
“In recent years, oral appliances (OAs) have become an increasingly common treatment modality for OSA and snoring. Although positive airway pressure (PAP) remains the most common and most efficacious treatment for sleep disordered breathing, OAs offer effective therapy for many patients with OSA. These devices offer advantages over PAP in that they do not require a source of electricity and are less cumbersome, especially with travel. Oral appliances are well tolerated in most patients, and therapeutic adherence may be better than CPAP. The improvement in quality of life produced by custom, titratable OAs is not inferior to that reported with CPAP therapy. The overall improvement in physiologic sleep parameters with the use of OAs in adult patients with OSA should result in an improvement in daily function and quality of life.”

Oral Appliance Therapy has developed into a fully recognized form of therapy for snoring, Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome and Obstructive Sleep Apnea. This treatment works hand-in-hand with current medical therapy and therefore your treating dentist is an integral part of the medical team treating your medical problem. The dentist must also be familiar with all of the types of therapy to treat snoring and sleep apnea. This includes surgery, CPAP, oral appliance therapy, and any combination of these treatments. Standards of care now dictate that some form of follow-up testing be performed to verify a patient’s treatment success or failure. Symptoms alone are not an accurate indicator that your airway is open. That is why it is so important for you to be re-evaluated by your physician after our treatment is finished.

Once a patient has an oral appliance and their problem is controlled, it must be understood that they are only managing their problem, not curing it. For this reason, all patients are seen once a year to make sure there are no problems with the appliances, their bite, muscles, TMJ.
Oral appliance Therapy is an FDA and Medicare approved treatment for Obstructive Sleep Apnea.  It offers a highly medically researched treatment alternative to CPAP therapy.  If you cannot tolerate CPAP or had surgery which has failed to fully treat the situation, oral appliances can be your answer.