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Understanding Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea is more than snoring. It's a medical condition where your breathing repeatedly
stops and starts during sleep — sometimes for 10 seconds or longer, sometimes dozens or
hundreds of times per night. Your brain jolts you awake each time, which means you never
reach the deep, restorative sleep your body needs. You may not even remember waking up.
The result? You wake up exhausted even after eight hours. You drag through the day. Your
heart works harder. Your blood pressure climbs. Your risk for serious health conditions rises
year by year.
The good news: it's highly treatable — and you don't need a CPAP machine to do it.
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Do you recognize these signs?
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You've been told you snore loudly
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You wake up with headaches or a dry, sore throat
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You feel fatigued or groggy no matter how much you sleep
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You clench or grind your teeth at night
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You get up frequently during the night
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You're irritable or have difficulty concentrating during the day
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Your partner notices you stop breathing, then gasp, during sleep
What Dr. Ousley Looks For
A clinical exam can reveal a surprising amount about your airway health. When Dr. Ousley
evaluates a patient for sleep apnea, she examines:
• Tongue size and position — a large or scalloped tongue is a key sign of airway crowding
• Neck circumference — larger neck size can narrow the airway
• Bite and tooth wear — grinding during sleep leaves visible marks
• Soft tissue — enlarged uvula, tonsils, or tori in the lower jaw
• Arch development — a narrow or underdeveloped dental arch reduces airway space
• Lip and mouth breathing signs — cracked lips, dry mouth, chronic congestion
This is the kind of whole-picture evaluation that sets Dr. Ousley apart from a standard sleep
clinic. She doesn't just read your AHI score — she looks at the structural and functional reasons
your airway is collapsing.
How Sleep Apnea Is Diagnosed
Sleep apnea must be formally diagnosed by a sleep physician. We offer at-home sleep testing,
which is convenient and accurate for most patients. After your test, a physician reviews the
results and determines whether your apnea is mild, moderate, or severe.
We also offer CBCT airway imaging — three-dimensional cone beam CT scans that show the
actual shape and volume of your airway. This technology is available in very few dental offices
in Oklahoma City, and it gives us information that a sleep study alone cannot provide.
Treatment Options
Oral Appliance Therapy
For mild to moderate sleep apnea, an oral appliance is often the most effective and most
comfortable treatment available. Dr. Ousley fits custom appliances that gently reposition the
lower jaw and keep your airway open during sleep. Unlike a CPAP, an appliance is small, silent,
and easy to travel with.
After fitting, we retest with a home sleep study to confirm the appliance is achieving the reduction in apnea episodes we're aiming for.
Treating the Root Cause: Tongue Tie
For some patients, sleep apnea is driven — at least in part — by a structural or muscular root cause. A restricted tongue tie prevents the tongue from resting in the correct position on the roof of the mouth, causing it to fall back into the throat during sleep and collapse the airway. Poor oral muscle tone, mouth breathing habits, and incorrect swallowing patterns compound the problem.
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​A frenectomy is a quick, minimally invasive procedure that releases the restrictive tissue under
the tongue. Dr. Ousley performs frenectomies at her dental office, using a laser under local
anesthesia. Most procedures take only a few minutes, and patients return to normal activity the
same day.
Myofunctional Therapy
Myofunctional therapy addresses that dysfunction directly. It's an exercise-based program —
much like physical therapy, but for the muscles of the tongue, lips, and face — that retrains how
those muscles function around the clock, not just during sleep.
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We partner with Jennifer DeJonge, RDH, OMT, of OMT of Oklahoma for patients who may benefit from myofunctional therapy and tongue tie evaluation. Jennifer sees patients ages 4 and up, both in-person and virtually throughout Oklahoma.