Over the years we have seen a downright incredible array of anti-snoring products come and go, attesting to the pervasiveness of the problem. Sleeplessness due to a snoring bed partner afflicts more people than does marriage... uh, maybe I should rephrase that, but you get the point. Snoring is a big drag, and except for the occasionally funny YouTube video, snoring is no laughing matter.
As I have written many times over the years, if you sleep with someone who snores, you have four options: make them sleep somewhere else, go sleep somewhere else yourself, make them stop snoring, or defend yourself with earplugs or a white noise masking system of some kind.
Once they have dismissed the first two options, most people focus on the third option: make them stop snoring! ...and that has created a veritable cornucopia of solutions that include sprays, nostril expanders, pills, pillows, jaw re-positioners of all kinds, and of course surgery. Now, I am not going to tell you which, if any, of these solutions might work for your particular snoring situation, but I will suggest that you have a heart-to-heart discussion with your doctor before you try any of these products. Every one of them has some risks, which vary from minor to major, so you need to be careful in your quest to get some sleep -- you do not want to harm your hubby!
People tell me that most of the “Make them stop!” products offer little or no benefit (unless you consider the economic benefit to the companies selling them, that is). Even surgery, I am told, is effective in less than half the cases in which it is used. And research suggests that even successful surgeries can't always provide a solution in the long-term.
Now, none of this is intended to make you not try the alternatives out there. I know most of you are probably going to try these products. Heck, if you suffer with sleepless nights due to snoring, I know you have probably already have tried several of them (and I do not blame you one bit). I just don’t want you to get your hopes up too high; remember, most people trying to sell you snoring cures will not always tell you the downside to the product.
At the end of your quest, after you have visited with your physician, after you have tried all the gadgets you think might work for you... just remember that there are always ear plugs. Those humble, inexpensive little blobs of foam rubber that you stick in your ears are, without any doubt, the most effective solution to sleeping with a snorer that exists today. If you haven't already, give them a try sometime. All you have to lose is your sleeplessness.
I know many of you have already tried earplugs, and for some of you, even plugs did not solve your problem -- you can still hear the snoring, and you're still missing sleep. Don’t despair! When passive hearing protection won't work, there is still one more solution to try: white noise sound masking, which works to actively block out that snoring. For more information, please read my next article on using white noise to mask the snoring (coming soon).
Until then, be well... and do the right thing.
--Tom (Dr. Earplug) Bergman
