Snoring is a disease that should be treated as soon as possible

Snoring, commonly known as “snoring”, is quite common in life, and can occur in old people as old as 70 or 80 years old, or in children as young as a few years old, and is often regarded as a sign of sound sleep. Under normal circumstances, snoring is indeed a physiological and deep sleep performance, which has no effect on life and work. However, if snoring exceeds the normal range, it becomes a disease. Clinically, there are patients who have severe snoring at night, resulting in lack of oxygen to the heart and brain, dizziness, drowsiness and elevated blood pressure during the day. The most typical one is known as “sleep apnea syndrome”, which is mainly characterized by loud snoring, intermittent breathing pauses and frequent awakening during sleep, and is mostly complicated by hypertension, myocardial ischemia and cerebral hypoperfusion. Studies have shown that sleep apnea is an important independent risk factor for ischemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease. Foreign analysis of 460 sudden death patients found that sleep apnea is also one of the culprits causing sudden death at night, which is called the sleep killer. Because of the poor quality of sleep of these patients, about 2/3 of them have different degrees of excessive sleep, and some of them often have more than 10 hours of sleep, or even sleep all day long, even so they feel fatigue, slow reaction, memory loss, agitation and irritability, which seriously affect work, study and life. In the past, it was thought that severe snoring was caused by local reasons such as low hanging soft palate in the pharynx, thickening or growth of the uvula, and the popular uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) was performed locally on the pharynx and palate, but because it failed to remove the obstruction in the nasal cavity and nasopharynx, it is usually easy to recur after 2-3 years. In fact, serious snoring is not caused by a single anatomical plane, but the key is the obstruction and collapse of the upper airway, such as low hanging soft palate, thickening or growth of the uvula, enlarged tonsils, soft tissue hypertrophy and fat deposition in the pharynx, obesity and upper respiratory tract diseases such as sinusitis, nasal polyps and turbinate hypertrophy, which lead to obstruction of nose ventilation and habit of open mouth breathing and other problems of multiple anatomical planes of the upper respiratory tract. In addition, it is the result of a combination of factors. Therefore, patients suffering from severe snoring, affecting the quality of sleep, especially with apnea, should go to the hospital for examination to clarify the causes of snoring and early treatment to improve ventilation and eliminate symptoms for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular protection.