Modern clinical dentistry and research has expanded our understanding of health, and today dentist are trained to look out for signs of emerging diseases not necessarily related to your teeth.
Diabetes is one disease that your dentist can often detect while doing a routine oral exam and help those suffering from the disease to managed. A new study that appeared in the journal Diabetes Care, found that nearly 87 percent of individuals with type 2 diabetes reported of having sleep apnea symptoms, but were never diagnosed as having sleep apnea. In other words they were experiencing the tiredness, lack of energy, sleepiness during the day while at night they were having episodes where they stopped breathing.
In fact the study reported more than 30 percent of the participants were having between 16 to 20 episodes each hour where they would stop breathing. As you might have read in a previous post this is extremely high and dangerous.
Dr. Gary Foster, who was the lead author of the study stated that, “the high prevalence of undiagnosed, and therefore, untreated sleep apnea among obese patients with diabetes constitutes a serious public health concern”.
The findings of this study indicate that it is important that doctors, dentist, and medical professionals be aware of this potential link and screen patients who have type 2 diabetes for the presence of sleep apnea.
If you know of anyone who has Type 2 diabetes share this information with them and have them contact my office for further information.
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Hi Dave: You are doing the right stuff for yourself. I would recommend that you get your machine check and think about getting a new one. There have been some great advances in machine design and the one you have has probably outlived its usefulness. If money is an issue, insurance companies and Medicare if you have it, cover most of the cost of a new one.
Take care of yourself,
Dr. Hilton