Tasty snoring surgical Ideas

Snoring (and sleep apnea) come from a small airway with loose tissue in the throat flapping around as you breathe.  The solution is a straight-forward concept: make the airway bigger and remove loose tissue.  Dr. Rileyperformed 3 procedures on me that can loosely be described as opening the top, sides, and bottom of my airway:

1. Top of Airway - UPPP (Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty) which is much like the more common LAUP but is more invasive.  It has the advantage over LAUP that it can be done all at once instead of LAUP's 3 - 5 separate visits over several months.
2. Sides of Airway - Tonsillectomy - The less material blocking the throat the better, so my tonsils were taken out.
3. Bottom of Airway - Genioglossus Tongue Advancement - The back of my tongue is large and falls back to obstruct the airway.  This procedure pulls the back of the tongue forward and prevents it from falling backward.
4. (Added 8/3/03) - about 3 months after the original surgery, I had the screw removed from my chin which is optional, and at the same time Dr. Riley corrected my slightly deviated septum in a small surgery in my nose, and used radio frequency to reduce the size of my turbinates in my nose, so that I breath easier through my nose and don't open my mouth as much as I sleep.  This was much more minor than the original 3 procedures, and the rest of this page just relates to those original 3 procedures.

Because of the invasiveness of this surgery, I spent the night in the hospital so they could monitor me. Below is a diagram of a mouth and throat and where everything is located, notice the Tonsils and Uvula: