Important Things to Know Before Undergoing Surgery For Snoring

The term snoring is used for the sounds made by a person due to the breathing airways becoming narrow, especially when the person is asleep. The narrowing of this respiratory tract can be due to various reasons like physical characteristics, bad sleeping posture, cough and cold or allergies, impact of smoking, alcohol or tranquilizers which relax the muscles and hence reduce space for the air to go in and out etc.

Depending on the cause, snoring can to an extent be either completely resolved or at least partially reduced by using different things like sleeping on a side, cleaning the respiratory tract before sleeping and avoiding smoking and drinking near bed times. Apart from this, various medicinal options like anti-snoring pills and sprays and nasal strips are available, and there are even various dental appliances which a person can use to reduce, if not resolve snoring.

If none of these methods work, then and only then the patient should look at the option of surgery to get rid of snoring. The important thing to consider before getting an operation is to confirm that the snoring is due to palatal abnormality, and not due to issues with the nasal system. Unless that is the reason for snoring, the palatal operations will not resolve the issue. To check and figure out the exact problems few of the doctors perform an nasendoscopy procedure to get the estimate of the problem.

Following are a few of the various surgical options which are available to the surgeons and the patients.

Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP)
Laser-assisted uvuloplatoplasty (LAUP)
Platal stiffening operations (CAPSO)
Radio-frequency ablation (Somnoplasty)
Injection Snoreplasty
Septoplasty
Pillar Procedure

These are all different types of surgery, which can be used to fix different types of issues to broaden the respiratory airway and hence allow the patient to breathe better. This will result in the resolving of the snoring problem. However, some of the methods are expensive and not available everywhere, also the same solution may not work for different people and you should choose the surgery, which is suited to solve your snoring problem. Discussing properly with your doctor will help you find such a solution.

Also, there are a few things to note, getting a surgery done does not guarantee success of solving the snoring problem. While some of the surgeries are painless, a few of them may cause pain and most of them are costly as compared to the other solutions for solving snoring. Also, the snoring surgery may be resolve the issue for some time and but then relapse over a period of time, if the person puts on more weight. Several doctors also do not suggest the surgery for snoring, unless the patient has a proper jaw shape, is not obese and also is not a heavy smoker or drinker, since these parameters would undo the effect of the operation.

All in all, while surgery is a way to solve the problem of snoring, it should be considered only when all other options fail to work.