Does He Snore LIKE A WANGIGE MATATU? Here's How To Shut Him Up!

Piece by: Caren Nyota
Lifestyle

Taping the mouth shut while you sleep may offer a new way to tackle snoring.

A device which sticks to the outside of the mouth and stops it opening during sleep is being tried in a new U.S. study involving 30 patients.

Scientists say the approach forces people to breathe though their noses, and this could help tackle sleep apnoea — where the tissues in the throat collapse repeatedly during the night, blocking the airways.

Consequently, people stop breathing for up to ten seconds at a time.

The theory is that breathing through the mouth more is one of the main causes of apnoeas (the period when someone stops breathing) as well as snoring (the sound produced as air squeezes through restricted airways at the back of the throat).

This is because when you sleep with your mouth open, the incoming air is cold and hits the back of the throat at high speed. This combination can make the soft tissue at the back of the throat vibrate and constrict.

Conversely, when we breathe through our nose the air coming in warms up as it goes through the nasal passageway, and when it comes into contact with the back of the throat it isn’t as ‘turbulent’ and doesn’t cause the effects that would lead to an apnoea or snoring.

Scientists believe that the new treatment, by encouraging patients to breathe through their noses, will overcome this problem.

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Sleep apnoea is thought to affect around one in five adults in Britain, and studies suggest 60 per cent of over-65s suffer from it.

It deprives the body of oxygen and, if left untreated, can contribute to long-term problems such as high blood pressure, heart failure and tumour growth.

Risk factors for sleep apnoea include being overweight, having a large neck and smoking. Some medications, including sleeping pills, are linked to it — and hormonal changes in the menopause can lead to throat muscles relaxing.

The standard treatment is with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) — a face mask the patient wears while sleeping, which delivers pressurised air to prevent the soft tissue of the throat collapsing and the airway closing.

It is effective, but almost half of CPAP users abandon the treatment as they find the equipment (which includes hoses, cords, masks and straps around the head) and its bulky design unbearable. However, the new device — the Varnum mouthpiece — is far more discreet and is essentially a disposable sticky patch that is placed over the mouth and stuck on around the lips before sleep.

"It is an interesting study using a simple, cheap and user-friendly device that has potential to reduce snoring and apnoea in selected mouth-breathers

Professor Jaydip Ray, ENT Surgeon"

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It has a tiny hole in the centre that allows a small amount of air in and out — just enough without vibrating the throat tissue — in order to make it more comfortable to use, and not wake patients up during the night if they subconsciously start breathing through their mouth.

In a previous study last year at the National Taiwan University, where patients had their mouths sealed while sleeping with a similar sticky patch, there was a significant reduction in the number of apnoeas they had per hour.

They also had quieter snores — indicating less severe sleep apnoea, according to the journal Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery.

A pilot study with the Varnum mouthpiece has found it produces a threefold drop in snoring, too.

And now, in the new study at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, 30 patients will use the mouthpiece for one night in a sleep laboratory and the number of sleep apnoeas will be monitored, as well as the changes in breathing rate and movement of soft tissue in the throat.

‘It is an interesting study using a simple, cheap and user-friendly device that has potential to reduce snoring and apnoea in selected mouth-breathers,’ says Professor Jaydip Ray, a consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.