Straight answers, before you call.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a condition in which the airway repeatedly narrows or closes during sleep, interrupting breathing for ten seconds or more at a time. Each episode briefly pulls you out of deep sleep so the airway can reopen. It is measured by the apnea-hypopnea index, the average number of these events per hour of sleep.

You often do not, which is the problem. The usual clues come from someone else: loud habitual snoring, or a partner who has watched you stop breathing. On your side it shows up as waking unrefreshed, daytime sleepiness, morning headaches, or a dry throat. None of these confirm it. Only a sleep study, read by a physician, does that.

No. Obstructive sleep apnea is a medical diagnosis made by a physician from an interpreted sleep study. A dental sleep medicine practice screens for it, helps arrange testing, and treats it once a physician has diagnosed it. Any practice offering to diagnose it for you is worth walking away from.

No. Snoring is noise from a partially narrowed airway. Apnea is the airway actually closing. Plenty of people snore without apnea, and some people with apnea barely snore. Snoring is coded separately as R06.83, and apnea should be excluded before snoring is treated as a nuisance.

Weight loss reduces severity for many people and occasionally resolves mild apnea, and it is worth doing on its own merits. It is not reliable as the only plan, it takes time during which you remain untreated, and plenty of people with obstructive sleep apnea are not overweight. Anatomy matters as much as weight.

It holds the lower jaw slightly forward during sleep. That advances the tongue and the soft tissue at the back of the throat, so the airway has room to stay open instead of collapsing. There is no mask, no hose, and no electricity.

It depends on what you measure. CPAP produces the larger reduction in apnea events on a night when it is worn. Oral appliances are worn more consistently, and in head-to-head studies the two often produce similar improvements in daytime sleepiness, blood pressure, and quality of life for that reason. For mild to moderate apnea, and for anyone who cannot tolerate CPAP, an oral appliance is a recognized treatment.

It will not do the same job. A boil-and-bite tray cannot be titrated, is not fitted to your bite, and can move teeth or strain a jaw joint. Its worst effect is that it may quiet the snoring while leaving the apnea untreated, which removes the alarm without removing the risk.

Some people notice better sleep within the first week or two of wearing the device. Others need several titration visits before the advancement reaches an effective position. Feeling better is encouraging but is not proof; repeat testing with the device in place is how effectiveness is confirmed.

Then we say so and go back to your physician. Sometimes the answer is a different device, sometimes it is combination therapy with CPAP, and sometimes it is a referral for a surgical or ENT opinion. Being a dedicated practice means being willing to conclude that our treatment is not the right one.

Because they frequently arrive together. Sleep-related bruxism, the clenching and grinding that happens while you are asleep, commonly occurs alongside disrupted breathing. Evaluating the jaw and the airway separately, in two offices, is how people end up with a night guard that protects their enamel and changes nothing else.

It will protect your teeth from wear. It does not explain why the muscles are working all night, and in a patient with an airway problem a flat guard can allow the jaw to fall back and make breathing worse. Here the bite is measured with T-Scan, muscle activity with EMG, and the joint imaged in 3D before anything is made.

EMFACE is FDA-cleared for the treatment of TMJ dysfunction. The cleared indications are relief of symptoms associated with muscle spasm, treatment of TMJ dysfunction and associated pain, muscle re-education, increased local blood flow, and maintenance or improvement of mandibular range of motion.

No. This practice uses EMFACE for TMJ dysfunction and jaw-muscle spasm only. Facial-aesthetic use of the same device is a different purpose, and it is not part of what happens here.

No. You can call the office yourself at (704) 978-7790. You do need a physician's diagnosis before an oral appliance can be delivered, and if you have not been tested we help arrange a home sleep apnea test and coordinate with a physician to read it.

Yes. Oral appliance therapy for sleep apnea is medical care, not dental, and the practice is a registered Medicare DME provider. Benefits are verified and discussed with you before treatment begins, and the practice files the claims.

Because sleep apnea is a medical diagnosis and the appliance is durable medical equipment, not a dental restoration. Dental plans generally exclude it, and filing it as a dental claim usually means a denial or a much smaller benefit than the medical claim you were entitled to.

No. This is a dedicated sleep, airway, and TMJ practice: different training, different diagnostics, and medical rather than dental billing. Dr. Kathryn Sudikoff, DMD is a Diplomate of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine and has treated sleep-related breathing disorders since 2004.

No, though they share an address and an owner. Dental Sleep Medicine of Charlotte is a medical sleep, airway, and TMJ practice with its own phone number and its own medical billing. iDental Dilworth is a separate general and cosmetic dentistry practice.

By faxing the completed referral form to (866) 864-3970 with the patient's demographics, a copy of the sleep study, and insurance information, or by calling the office. The referral page carries the form, the criteria, and the diagnosis codes.