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arrow1Snoring and sleep apnea

arrow1Sleep recording at home

arrow1Pharyngoplasty (laser, radiofrequency, surgery)

Sleep Apnea

arrow1Snoring and sleep apnea

arrow1Hygiene and dietary measures

arrow1Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP)

arrow1Laser and surgery

Surgery Information Sheet– in French only (SFORL)

arrow1Soft palate radiofrequency procedure



One out of four French people suffers ronchopathy. This means that he/she snores, and sometimes very loudly. The World Health Organization has identified sound intensities up to 80 decibels! (At takeoff, an aircraft produces 90 decibels and over). During sleep, our throat muscles relax, the tongue and lower jaw falls backward, the uvula get stuck into the bottom of the pharynx, which narrows the air passages.

If the uvula or soft palate is a bit long, the nasal septum deviated, turbinates hypertrophic, the nasopharynx narrowed (adenoids) or tonsils too large, then the muscles and mucous membranes of the throat begin to vibrate.


Tobacco, alcohol, tranquilizers, as well as obesity and age promote snoring. Other than causing nuisance and relationship problems with people that shares the same bed or sleeps in the same room, it may also be responsible for decreasing the level of oxygen in the blood. The more you snore, the more suffocating and more efforts are made to inhale the air. This results in a chronic asphyxia that strains the heart, increases blood pressure and cardiovascular risks.

The sleep apnea syndrome affects indeed 5% of adults and 10% of snorers. In untreated sleep apnea, breathing is stopped from ten seconds to several minutes and this can occur up to 100 times per night. Sleep is restless, fragmented, non-restorative. People suffering sleep apnea wake up tired with dry mouth, drowsiness during the day, headaches and even memory loss. This condition, when severe, causes cardiovascular complications.

A sleep recording test helps find the best possible treatments: lifestyle and dietary rules, weight loss, laser or surgery and, in acute cases, oxygen therapy. The recording can be performed at home and can differentiate a simple snoring from a ronchopathy with a sleep apnea syndrome. After placing, at the clinic, the "sound and positional" sensors like sticky dots on the sternum, the patient just have to plug the module at home. The recording is done over a period of 8 hours using a laptop case.

The surgical treatment is simple. After a CT scan without injection to identify sino-nasal and nasopharynx problems, the uvula and the soft palate are reduced by surgery, laser or radio frequency. The correction of a deviated nasal septum with reduced volume of the turbinates and stiffening of the soft palate leads to up to 80-85% of good results: significant improvement or disappearance of snoring allowing better oxygenation, more restful sleep and a more toned awakening.


For simple snoring, most often, the procedure is done by laser under local anesthesia.

Length of the operation: 20 to 30 minutes under local anesthesia

Length of the operation: 20 to 30 minutes under ambulatory hospitalization for the soft palate

Pain: like an angina for about 8 days.


For men, snoring is often a symptom that marks the beginning of andropause. In fact sooner or later, from 45-50 years, men have various problems (general fatigue, weight gain, heart and circulatory disorders, sexual failure, memory loss, irritability, tendency to depression, etc ...). These disturbances are often blamed on stress and burnout. But these disorders are related in reality, to a natural phenomenon: the gradual decrease in the production of male hormone, aka testosterone, easily diagnosed by a hormonal check-up.

The results of treatment of andropause are often spectacular.


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