Struggling to Adjust to Your Oral Appliance? Try These Helpful Suggestions!

When you first received your oral appliance for sleep apnea, you may have been excited — and rightly so! It has the potential to help you finally start getting the rest you need to feel better and reduce your risk of some serious health problems. Unfortunately, though, you might have found that adjusting to your oral appliance is more challenging than you thought it would be. What can you do to get used to it and start enjoying its benefits? This blog post contains some helpful suggestions.

Common Challenges with Oral Sleep Appliances

An oral appliance is a foreign object in your mouth, so it is not surprising that it might pose some challenges at first. You might experience:

• Tightness and discomfort. Oral appliances are made of hard plastic, which might feel tight and uncomfortable in your oral cavity. (A somewhat tight fit is a good thing; it can mean that your appliance is well-fitted!)
• Drooling. Whenever you place something in your mouth, extra saliva production occurs. That is part of your body’s digestive process, and it does not differentiate between food and inanimate objects.
• Gagging. If you have a particularly sensitive gag reflex, you might gag when you first start wearing your appliance. This urge tends to subside over time.
• Nighttime removals. Some patients unconsciously reject their oral appliance while they are sleeping. This issue usually goes away with consistent use.

How Can You Adjust?

The key to adjusting to your oral appliance is simply to wear it! Do your best to use it every single night, even if it is uncomfortable for you. Some patients also choose to wear their device for short periods during the day so their body can get used to the way it feels. Eventually, you should notice reduced discomfort, less gagging, and less frequent nighttime rejections of your appliance. The typical adjustment period is 2 – 3 weeks.

What if You Still Have Problems?

If you do not seem to be making any progress with your oral appliance, or you believe that your struggles with it are unusually severe, talk to the dentist who provided it. It is possible that the device needs to be adjusted. Some patients need to get a completely new appliance that is better suited to their unique mouth.

Oral appliance therapy is a reliable way to find relief from obstructive sleep apnea, but it can take a bit of getting used to. Do your best to stick to your treatment, and hopefully it will soon be an easy part of your nightly routine!

Meet the Practice

For well over a decade, Dr. Kenneth Mogell and our team have been helping members of our community to find freedom from obstructive sleep apnea via oral appliance therapy. We provide top-quality devices and are always ready to support patients when they encounter questions or challenges. To learn more about how we may be able to serve you, contact any of our locations or call our Boca Raton office at 561-353-5252.