Sleep Apnea Treatment: Toronto's Surgical Options

If you have been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, your doctor can recommend surgery to alleviate your symptoms. However, you have to discuss the viability of this option with a sleep specialist and/or an experienced surgeon because the type of surgical sleep apnea treatment, Toronto boasting many of them, largely depends on your physical conditions, severity of the sleep disorder and the benefits you can derive from it.

Whatever surgical sleep apnea treatment Toronto physicians will recommend, the primary objective is always to remove excess tissues from either the nose or the throat. These organs either abnormally vibrate and cause loud snoring or block the air passages and cause sleep apnea.

Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty

Generally known in the medical world as UP3, this surgical procedure removes excess tissues in either one or all of the uvula, the soft palate, the tonsils, the adenoids and the pharynx. Basically, this is from to mouth's rear to the throat's top.

You will have to be admitted to the hospital and made to undergo a general anesthetic. As a stand-alone procedure, UP3 exhibits disappointing results with less than 40% of patients benefiting from it. In fact, some have reported worse breathing problems!

There is, however, a new sleep apnea treatment Toronto physicians can adopt. It is called the Stanford Protocol Operation, which has exhibited a success rate of 60-70% of patients totally cured and 90% of patients showing significant improvements.

Maxillomandibular Advancement

In this type of sleep apnea treatment, Toronto surgeons will move your upper and lower jaw forward. This will enlarge the space behind the soft palate and the tongue to dispose of the likelihood for obstructions.

You will also be made to undergo another procedure to increase the chances for success. Among the considered surgical procedures is the two-part inferior sagittal mandibular osteotomy and genioglossal advancement with hyoid myotomy and suspension. Hopefully, by the time you wake up from the anesthesia, you will be able to pronounce all that!

Tracheostomy

Though this surgical operation is the easiest to pronounce, it is the hardest to live with, in a way. When your doctor recommends this procedure, you have a severe and life-threatening sleep apnea that other treatments - of the lifestyle and medical kinds - have failed to cure.

In this type of sleep apnea treatment, Toronto surgeons will make an incision in your neck and insert either metal or plastic tubing through which you can breathe. You have to keep this opening covered at daytime and uncover it at night to allow air to pass in and out of your lungs. This way, your blocked air passages are bypassed, causing lesser episodes of sleep apnea.

You have to be very careful when a tracheostomy tube is inserted because it can cause complications. Among these are immune problems brought by the air inhaled through the stoma, drowning from water in the stoma that precludes swimming, and suffocation.

Whatever surgical procedure you decide to undertake as a sleep apnea treatment, Toronto doctors should be able to advice you of the benefits and complications of the operation. Keep in mind, however, that these treatment options may not cure sleep apnea entirely but can make it possible for other non-surgical treatment options, like CPAP machines and masks, to be successfully applied.