Stop Snoring Now!

Camarillo Smiles offers the NightLase®  Snoring Treatment for people who are sick and tired of their snoring. And, for people that have bed partners that are sick and tired of their snoring 🙂

You want to stop snoring but the idea of wearing a mouth guard for the rest of your life or being hooked up to a CPAP machine every night, let alone going under the surgeon’s knife just isn’t appealing to you.

NightLase® is a breakthrough in snoring treatment. A Fotona Lightwalker laser is used to perform this treatment right in the dental chair. It’s quick and easy. It is non-surgical. There is no cutting, no shots and is virtually painless.

When you go to sleep, as you enter your dream phase, your muscles at the back of your throat relax. This relaxation causes the muscles that hold your air passages open to collapse, partially blocking your airflow. When the air travels past the obstruction it causes vibration and produces the sound that dreaded snore.

NightLase® uses laser light therapy to tighten up the tissues in the back of your mouth and creates a wider passage for air.

The NightLase® procedure involves shining a laser light on the soft palate, uvula, base of the tongue and back of the throat. This causes the collagen in the tissues to shrink up and become less flabby and allows new firmer collagen to be produced. This result is tighter tissue and muscles of the mouth, throat, and airway which helps open up our airflow and allows us to breathe better as well as sleep better.

Nightlase® has been in use in Europe, South America and Canada since 2010 and has more recently been introduced to Australia and now the United States.

Click on the studies below

NightLaseTM – a New Laser Treatment Method for the
Reduction of Snoring and Sleep Apnea – a Pilot Study

Reduction of Snoring and Sleep Apnea

Fotona Er-Yag Laser Treatment of Sleep Disordered Breathing

There are several types of sleep therapy machines, but a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine is by far, the most common. A CPAP machine forces a constant flow of air to your throat to ensure that your airway stays open while you sleep, which keeps you from struggling to breathe as we see in spontaneous pauses in breath associated with sleep apnea.

Surgery for snoring is often seen as a last resort when a person does not respond to noninvasive treatments like mouthpieces or oral devices. There are many different options for snoring surgery, and each come with their own side effects and risks.

Pillar procedure

The pillar procedure, which is also called a palatal implant, is a surgical procedure which involves implanting small polyester (plastic) rods into the soft upper palate of your mouth. It is sort of like a batten in a sailboat sail or a shirt collar.

Each of these implants is about 2/3 of an inch long and 1/16 of an inch in diameter. As the tissue around these implants heals, the palate stiffens. This helps keep the tissue more rigid and less likely to vibrate and cause snoring.

Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP)

UPPP is a surgical procedure that involves removing some of the soft tissues in the back and top of the throat. This includes removing the uvula, which hangs at the throat’s opening, as well as some of the throat walls and palate.

This makes breathing easier by keeping the airway more open, but their can be some serious long-term side effects like voice changes, swallowing difficulties, or the permanent feeling of something being stuck in your throat.

The procedures can help reduce snoring but it isn’t used to treat obstructive sleep apnea.

Maxillomandibular advancement (MMA)

MMA is an extensive surgical procedure that moves the upper and lower jaws forward to open your airway. This can open the airway and reduce snoring.

Hypoglossal nerve stimulation (Inspire)

Inspire is being advertised a lot lately. It is a surgically implanted device that stimulates the hypoglossal nerve. It’s activated during sleep and can sense when the person wearing it is not breathing normally and it sends a signal to tighten up the muscles of the airway. It doesn’t get to the root cause.

Septoplasty and turbinate reduction

Septoplasty and turbinate reduction correct physical deformity in your nose that may contribute to your snoring or obstructive sleep apnea.

A septoplasty involves straightening the tissues and bones in the nose. A turbinate reduction involves removing tissue inside your nose.

Both of these surgeries are often done at together at the same time. They can help make breathing easier and snoring less likely.

Genioglossus advancement

Genioglossus advancement is taking the tongue muscle that attaches to the lower jaw and pulling it forward. This can make the tongue firmer and less likely to relax during sleep.

The surgeon cuts a small piece of bone in the lower jaw where the tongue attaches and pulls that bone forward. A small screw or plate attaches the piece of bone to the lower jaw to hold the bone in place.

Hyoid suspension

Here, a surgeon moves the back of the tongue and the epiglottis forward. This helps open the airway lower down the throat.

During this surgery, a surgeon cuts into the upper throat and detaches several tendons and some muscle. Once the hyoid bone is moved forward, a surgeon attaches it into place. Because this surgery does not impact the vocal cords, your voice should remain unchanged after surgery.

Midline glossectomy and lingualplasty

Midline glossectomy surgery is used to reduce the size of the tongue and increase the size of your airway. One common midline glossectomy procedure involves removing parts of the middle and back of the tongue. Sometimes, a surgeon will also trim the tonsils and partially remove the epiglottis.

These oral appliances look much like a mouth guard used in sports but the idea of these devices is to hold the lower jaw and keep it from falling back into the airway space. The device fits over the upper and lower dental arches.