What are your Sleep Apnea Surgery Options?

Posted By EightNviagrae On 29th April 2011

A lot of people think that sleep apnea surgery will be an effective way to deal with the condition. Usually this is not the case. The reason that so many people like the idea of surgery is that the other treatments are so inconvenient. Unfortunately your sleep apnea surgery options are fairly limited. In most cases your doctor will only agree to the surgery if all of the other treatment options have proven unsuccessful.

The reality is that you don’t really have a lot of sleep apnea surgery options; there is only one procedure that is widely performed. The others are only used in extreme cases, mainly emergencies. The reason for this is that these surgeries are very invasive and not all that effective. This is also true of the surgery that is widely performed but less so than with the other options. The most common sleep apnea surgery involves removing some of the tissue from the back of the throat and the soft palate. This is done to open up some extra space in your airway and to make it less likely that your throat will close.

If you are considering sleep apnea surgery you should keep in mind that it is a very painful procedure and it takes a long time to recover. A lot of people like the idea of surgery because the CPAP machine is such an inconvenience. However since your sleep apnea surgery options are limited to basically one procedure this is not normally a good idea. Not only is it painful it is also not all that effective. Only about half of the people who have sleep apnea surgery see a permanent reduction in their symptoms.

Not only is there a good chance that the surgery won’t work there is also a chance that it could make CPAP less effective. This could put you in a position where there is not effective way to deal with your symptoms. This is why your doctor will normally only consider surgery in cases where all other treatment options have failed. CPAP may be inconvenient but it is almost always a better way to treat the condition than surgery. Only if it is unable to manage your symptoms will your doctor discuss your sleep apnea surgery options with you.

As with any surgery there are risks involved in sleep apnea surgery. The biggest of these is the chance of an infection. This is actually a very serious risk as the majority of people who have the surgery will develop an infection. This is largely because it is a very invasive procedure that is performed in a place that it is difficult to keep germs out of. In fact about forty percent of the people who have the surgery are going to require a second surgery to fix the infection that they got on the first one. Something to think about given how painful the surgery is.

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