You sleep seven or eight hours and wake up as though you did not sleep at all.
Maybe you have been told it is stress, or your age, or your weight. Maybe your partner has moved to the spare room. Maybe you were prescribed a CPAP machine two years ago and it has been in the closet for most of that time.
There is a version of this conversation that starts at a dentist, and it is shorter than you would expect. It begins with one night of sleep in your own bed.
Snoring on its own is often just snoring. It becomes worth investigating when it arrives with any of these:
That last one is why a dentist is often the first person to notice. Nighttime grinding and sleep-disordered breathing turn up in the same patients often enough that it is worth asking about your sleep, though the direction of that relationship is still being worked out and grinding on its own is not proof of an airway problem. What it is, reasonably, is a reason to ask a different question rather than simply fit a night guard and move on.
This distinction matters, and we do not blur it.
Dentists screen. Physicians diagnose. Dr. Wolfe can identify the signs, arrange an at-home screening and provide appliance therapy — but sleep apnea is a medical diagnosis, made by a board-certified sleep physician who reads your data. We work alongside that physician rather than around them. Our sleep and airway health page covers the wider picture, including how airway problems show up in the mouth.
What that means practically: nothing here replaces your doctor, and if your screening points to something outside our scope we will tell you and help you get to the right place.
Overnight sleep labs put a lot of people off entirely, which is part of why so much sleep apnea goes untreated. This is the alternative.
One night. Your own bed. No lab, no wires, no waiting room.
If treatment is indicated, one option is a custom oral appliance — a device worn at night that holds your lower jaw and tongue slightly forward so the airway stays open while the muscles relax.
It fits in a pocket. There is no mask, no hose, no power outlet, nothing to pack in a separate bag when you travel. Most people find the first week or two strange and then stop noticing it.
We adjust it gradually over several weeks rather than handing it over and hoping. Then a follow-up sleep test confirms it is actually working, because an appliance that has not been verified is a guess rather than a treatment.
It is not right for every case, and it is not a replacement for CPAP where your physician has determined CPAP is what you need. Certain dental conditions, insufficient healthy teeth to anchor a device, and some jaw joint problems rule it out. An evaluation is how we find out, and we would rather tell you no than fit something that will not help.
You are not unusual and you are not doing anything wrong. Plenty of prescribed machines end up unused — not because they do not work, but because people cannot tolerate the mask, the pressure, the noise, or traveling with it.
The problem is that your chart says you are being treated while in reality you are not. That is worth a conversation rather than another year of guilt. Bring the machine and the sleep study if you still have them, and bring your physician into it — the goal is treatment you will actually use, decided with them.
Some of this is visible at a routine examination, which is why we ask about sleep even when you came in for a cleaning:
None of that is a diagnosis. All of it is a reason to ask a different question.
No. We screen for it and arrange testing, and a board-certified sleep physician makes the diagnosis from your data. We then provide appliance therapy in collaboration with that physician.
CPAP is generally more effective at reducing apnea events when it is used consistently, and for moderate to severe apnea it is usually the first-line treatment. The comparison that matters for many people is between an appliance they will actually wear and a machine they will not. Your physician helps make that call.
Many patients see a substantial reduction. Snoring and sleep apnea are related but not the same thing, and treating the airway is not primarily about the noise.
The screening is one night. Reading and discussing results usually takes a week or two. A custom appliance takes a few weeks to make and then several more to adjust properly.
Children are a different pathway, because their jaws are still growing and growth guidance is available. See our pediatric airway and growth page.
Then you have ruled something out, which is genuinely useful. We will talk about what else could explain how you are feeling and who to see next.
If you wake up tired no matter what time you went to bed, that is the conversation. One night, in your own bed, and you will finally have data instead of a theory.
(818) 788-1231 · 16311 Ventura Blvd, Suite 1296, Encino, CA 91436
Serving Encino, Sherman Oaks, Tarzana, Studio City and Woodland Hills.