For adults with obstructive sleep apnea, the standard treatment is positive airway pressure therapy (such as CPAP, BPAP, or APAP).  Surgery is reserved for patients who are unable to tolerate or benefit from positive airway pressure therapy.  For children, adenoidectomy and/or tonsillectomy for sleep apnea is the standard treatment.  Positive airway pressure therapy is not… Read more »

Nasal obstruction, or trouble breathing through the nose, can be challenging to treat because there are multiple potential causes.  Each of these causes has their own series of treatments, and often multiple treatments for nasal obstruction may be required in the same patient.  One common source of nasal obstruction is collapse of the sides of… Read more »

This past Friday, I had the privilege of speaking to the Western Los Angeles Dental Society about the surgical evaluation and treatment of obstructive sleep apnea and snoring during an educational course about sleep dentistry.  My grandfather was a dentist in Los Angeles who practiced for over 50 years, and I have always had tremendous… Read more »

I was recently invited to join the Advisory Board of the American Sleep Association.  Because of their dedication to increasing awareness about the importance of sleep and sleep disorders, I agreed to this position and contributed website content related to surgical treatment of snoring and obstructive sleep apnea.  Here are links to those pages: Snoring… Read more »

Inspire Upper Airway Stimulation for sleep apnea is a powerful and exciting treatment for many patients who do not succeed with positive airway pressure therapy (for example, CPAP or BPAP).  Inspire Upper Airway Stimulation for sleep apnea is a system that involves a surgical procedure to implant 3 components.  These components work together to deliver stimulation to the… Read more »

As a snoring and sleep apnea surgeon, I see patients all the time who snore and report being sleepy.  We will order a sleep study, assuming that they have obstructive sleep apnea.  However, the sleep study may show no evidence of obstructive sleep apnea.  This can be both good and bad news.  The good news… Read more »

Last year, I shared the findings of a consensus panel indicating that adults should sleep at least 7 hours per night on a regular basis to promote optimal health.  The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has followed this with a similar expert panel to develop recommendations for sleep for children.  I treat adults with sleep disorders but… Read more »

I just returned from giving lectures at the 13th Annual Middle East Update in Otolaryngology conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.  I had never visited Dubai before, and it was wonderful to share experiences with colleagues from throughout the Middle East and beyond while having the additional bonus of seeing a new part of the world.  Beyond the conference, it… Read more »

On April 15-16, 2016, the seventh scientific meeting of the International Surgical Sleep Society was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  The ISSS Sao Paulo meeting was the largest and most-comprehensive meeting of our organization.  As a co-organizer, we took the opportunity to expand the program, especially the discussions focused on pediatric sleep surgery and treatment with maxillofacial… Read more »

This past weekend, I gave a lecture at the USC Advanced Endoscopic Sinus Surgery Course on the impact of nasal surgery for snoring and obstructive sleep apnea.  A previous blog post examined recent research showing that studies show that nasal surgery, by itself, does not alleviate sleep apnea in most patients but that it can improve… Read more »