New Treatments Help Prevent Snoring

April 8 -- Who says you and your snoring sleepmate can't snooze together in peace? While snoring can turn nighttime into a nightmare, doctors now have several new treatments to help quiet the bedtime bulldozer.

At one time or another, snoring affects an estimated quarter to half of Americans. Besides fitful sleep for bed partners and the potential for marital discord, snoring can disrupt sleep even for the snorer and is often associated with the more severe condition known as obstructive sleep apnea, where the airway is obstructed at night.

For snorers like Daniel Nixon of New York City, various home solutions tried over the years yielded little to no success. Nixon told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America about some of the remedies he'd tried: "Some sprays and some washes, … some strips that help you breathe at night that you put across your nose. None of it did that much good."

Much of the frustration lies in pinpointing the exact cause of the snoring. Many people often assume the cause is a floppy soft palate that vibrates at night when breathing through the mouth. But other common causes include obstructive sleep apnea, an enlarged tongue base or tonsils, or simple allergies.

That's why Dr. Peter Catalano, chair of the department of otolaryngology at Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass., says it's so important to get a thorough evaluation by a trained specialist to help decide which treatment approach will be most effective.

Treatment for a floppy palate won't help if the cause is something else. "I'd say 60 percent of my patients have one of these other causes," Catalano says.

New Treatments for Floppy Palates

If other causes are ruled out, then those with a floppy palate may be candidates for new treatments to help reduce vibration of the palate or other tissues in the airway, like the tongue, throat muscles, and uvula which visibly hangs from the palate's back end.

In the past, one of the most common medical treatments for floppy tissue has been laser-assisted uvulopalatoplasty or LAUP.