Tonsillectomy as a Sleep Apnea Treatment Swollen tonsils are more likely to cause sleep apnea in kids than adults. 79% of children with sleep apnea have their symptoms resolved through a tonsillectomy. For adults, a tonsillectomy can be effective, as long as the tonsils were swollen and causing the apnea episodes.
Results. We defined success as a > 50% reduction of the Apnoea–Hypopnea Index (AHI) and a total AHI of < 20 post-surgery. The averages before surgery were an AHI of 22.3 and an ESS of 7.22. The success rate was 47.6% after tonsillectomy as the sole treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea in our adult population.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a problem in which your breathing pauses during sleep. This occurs because of narrowed or blocked airways. Massively enlarged tonsils can cause episodes of cessation of breathing known as obstructive sleep apnea.
While there is no cure for sleep apnea, studies show that certain lifestyle factors can reverse or make your sleep apnea less intense. Other treatment or surgical options can also reverse the condition.
Tonsil surgery can improve or get rid of breathing and sleep problems such as snoring or breathing pauses in children. But surgery isn't always necessary. Enlarged palatine tonsils can affect children's sleep. It is common for children who have enlarged palatine tonsils to have enlarged adenoids too.
Today, however, this once common procedure is no longer a standard operating procedure. Why? Dr. DeMarino says that, “There are fewer tonsillectomies due to skepticism in the medical community over its usefulness in infection control and more stringent guidelines.”
Studies show that patients who develop sleep apnea before the age of fifty have a life expectancy between 8 and 18 years. Fortunately lifestyle changes, treatment, and other interventions can improve the life expectancy of someone with sleep apnea.
This brain damage was accompanied by impairments to cognition, mood and daytime alertness. Although three months of CPAP therapy produced only limited improvements to damaged brain structures, 12 months of CPAP therapy led to an almost complete reversal of white matter abnormalities.
CPAP is more commonly used because it's been well studied for obstructive sleep apnea and has been shown to effectively treat the condition. People who have difficulty tolerating fixed CPAP might want to try BPAP or APAP . Don't stop using your positive airway pressure machine if you have problems.
Sleeping on your back often worsens apnea, while sleeping on your side may lesson episodes of apnea. When you are lying on your back, your tongue and soft palate tend to fall back to the throat, which can increase breathing difficulties.
Heart damage and heart failure. Sleep apnea causes an increase in pressure in the blood vessels around your heart and on some of the chambers of your heart itself. That pressure increase puts a strain on your heart, ultimately causing damage to the heart muscle itself. Arrhythmias, especially atrial fibrillation.
But in people with obstructive sleep apnea, muscle tone in the upper throat is lost during deep sleep, causing these soft tissues to flop into the airway and obstruct airflow. Snoring is the mildest result of the loss of muscle tone in the upper airway.
Maxillomandibular advancement (MMA) is one of the most effective surgeries for sleep apnea and has one of the highest success rates at about 87%.
Trouble sleeping at night. You may experience some difficult sleeping at night in the days following the procedure. This is common because it can be uncomfortable to breathe through your mouth right after surgery.
Tonsillectomy can produce short-term improvement in sleep outcomes compared with no surgery in children with OSDB. Understanding of longer-term outcomes or effects in subpopulations is lacking.
There is good news. Upper airway stimulation therapy using a hypoglossal nerve stimulator is an option for people who are unable to tolerate their CPAPs. It's been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea.
Unfortunately, we can't really call sleep apnea treatments like positive airway pressure (PAP) or continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) sleep apnea cures. They usually work very well in eliminating sleep apnea symptoms, but they're a means of treating and living with the condition, not of getting rid of it.
Time Take to Recover From Sleep Apnea
If you undergo surgery, it will take several days to recover. If you are using CPAP, it will take some time before you notice the positive effects of the treatment. Averagely, the effects will start showing around three months, and full recovery can be up to a year.
Obstructive sleep apnea is classified by severity: Severe obstructive sleep apnea means that your AHI is greater than 30 (more than 30 episodes per hour) Moderate obstructive sleep apnea means that your AHI is between 15 and 30. Mild obstructive sleep apnea means that your AHI is between 5 and 15.
There have been death cases related to sleep apnea. The cessation of breath during sleep apnea could span for as long as 10 seconds. It is detrimental to one's heart, brain, and other vital organs. Hence, it is crucial to get treated if you have sleep apnea.
Weight loss of just 10-15% can reduce the severity of OSA by 50% in moderately obese patients. Unfortunately, while weight loss can provide meaningful improvements in OSA, it usually does not lead to a complete cure, and many sleep apnea patients need additional therapies.
A child at any age can have a tonsillectomy if the indications are severe. However, surgeons generally wait until children are 3 years old to remove tonsils because the risk of dehydration and bleeding is greater among small children.
“The good news is, having your tonsils removed has proven to significantly reduce the rate of infection for chronic sufferers. And you don't need your tonsils, so there are no long-term consequences for having them removed,” Dr. Ingley says.
Surgical removal of tonsils and adenoids is associated with a modestly increased risk of cancer during the decades following the surgery. The association is unlikely attributed to confounding due to shared genetic or non-genetic factors with a family.