Everyone Deserves a Good Night's Rest.

Sleep apnea disrupts normal breathing during sleep, with repeated pauses and restarts. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) — the most common form, making up about 80% of sleep-disordered breathing cases — happens when throat muscles relax and obstruct the airway, often triggered or worsened by excess weight, smoking, and alcohol use. The irregular breathing strains the heart and is linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, anxiety, depression, and metabolic issues. While not usually fatal directly, long-term untreated sleep apnea significantly increases the risk of life-threatening cardiovascular events, so early testing and treatment matter.

Loud snoring, breathing pauses during sleep, waking up choking or gasping, morning headaches, dry mouth, and excessive daytime sleepiness are common signs, along with irritability and trouble concentrating. Many people don't realize they have it until a partner notices. Sleep apnea isn't limited to loud snorers — thin patients, women, and people with nasal obstruction or jaw issues can have it too, sometimes alongside jaw clenching, TMJ pain, or teeth grinding (bruxism).

Our “Do I Have Sleep Apnea?” quiz above is a good starting screen, but a diagnostic sleep test is needed to confirm the condition — either an at-home test or an in-lab sleep study, both measuring oxygen levels, airflow, snoring, and heart rate overnight. Your resulting AHI (Apnea-Hypopnea Index) score shows the severity, and a dentist trained in sleep medicine can help you understand your results and treatment options.

At-home sleep testing is simple, comfortable, and affordable — you sleep in your own bed while a small device measures breathing, oxygen, and snoring. It's a good fit for patients with moderate-to-high suspected risk who want fast answers. An in-lab sleep study (polysomnography) is more detailed, monitoring brain waves, heart rate, airflow, muscle activity, and sleep stages overnight in a medical facility — the gold standard for complex cases, central sleep apnea, severe symptoms, or CPAP titration. Both are accurate for the right patient; we can help you decide which makes sense for you.

You may be a candidate if you experience daytime sleepiness, disrupted sleep, loud or heavy snoring, morning headaches or dry mouth, or symptoms that have worsened with age. You may also be a good fit if you're overweight, have large tonsils, or have been diagnosed with sleep apnea but don't tolerate a CPAP machine well.

• Improves symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea
• An effective option for those who can't tolerate CPAP
• No electricity required
• Silent
• Easy to travel with

We take an impression of your upper and lower teeth so a dental lab can fabricate your custom appliance — typically ready within about two weeks. Dr. Boris Zusin checks the fit and makes any needed adjustments, and you'll begin wearing it nightly from there, with follow-up visits as needed.

Custom sleep apnea oral appliances generally run in the range of a couple thousand dollars, which typically covers the diagnostic work, the custom-fabricated device itself, and the follow-up visits needed to fine-tune the fit. Many medical (not dental) insurance plans provide some coverage when obstructive sleep apnea is formally diagnosed. See our full oral appliance cost breakdown and insurance coverage guide for more detail, or ask us directly during a consultation.

Often, at least partially — but through your medical insurance, not your dental plan. Oral appliances are billed as durable medical equipment once obstructive sleep apnea is formally diagnosed by a physician-ordered sleep study, and many medical plans, including Medicare, provide coverage from there, sometimes after prior authorization. Dental insurance generally doesn't apply to sleep apnea treatment at all, since it's classified as a medical rather than a dental condition. Coverage details vary a lot by plan, so we're happy to help you understand your specific benefits — see our full insurance coverage guide for what to check with your insurer before your first visit.

Both, usually together. A physician or sleep specialist diagnoses obstructive sleep apnea through a home or in-lab sleep study, and a dentist trained in dental sleep medicine — like Dr. Boris Zusin, a Diplomate of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine (ABDSM) — provides the oral appliance therapy itself, then works with your physician to confirm it's controlling your apnea effectively. See Sleep Apnea Dentist vs. Sleep Doctor for a fuller breakdown of who does what.

We don't fabricate the appliance ourselves at the chairside, but we take the impression or digital scan, prescribe and fit the device, and handle every adjustment visit after that. Our appliance of choice, Panthera, is digitally designed and 3D-printed from that scan to exact specifications for your bite — a more precise fit than a generic or over-the-counter mouthguard.

Zusin Dental is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, near Lincoln Center, and treats patients from across Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs seeking sleep apnea and snoring treatment. Contact us to schedule a consultation.

Not quite. A boil-and-bite or over-the-counter mouthguard is a generic, one-size-fits-most device — it isn't custom-fitted to your bite and isn't designed or tested to treat obstructive sleep apnea. A custom oral appliance like Panthera is a precision medical device, digitally designed from a scan of your own teeth and jaw and manufactured to hold your lower jaw in a specific, therapeutic position. That precision is what makes it an effective sleep apnea treatment rather than just a device to protect your teeth.

Often, yes. Many patients who start on CPAP find it uncomfortable, bulky, or hard to stick with every night and ask about switching to oral appliance therapy instead — it's one of the most common reasons patients come to see us. Whether it's a good switch for you depends on your AHI severity and overall health, so we review your existing sleep study with you before recommending a change; some patients do best combining both therapies rather than replacing one with the other.

Look for a dentist with specific training and credentialing in dental sleep medicine, not just a general dentist who occasionally fits appliances. Dr. Boris Zusin is a Diplomate of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine (ABDSM) — the field's board-certification credential — which reflects additional training, testing, and case review specific to diagnosing appliance candidacy and managing sleep apnea therapy over time, beyond what's covered in general dental school.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) — caused by the airway physically collapsing or narrowing during sleep — is by far the most common type and the one oral appliance therapy treats. Central sleep apnea (CSA) is different: it's caused by the brain briefly failing to signal the breathing muscles at all, rather than a physical blockage, and it requires medical rather than dental management. Mixed (or complex) sleep apnea involves both. If your sleep study points to a central or mixed component, we'll help coordinate you with the right physician alongside any dental treatment.