The 5 Best home remedies for snoring

Snoring isn’t just a nighttime annoyance; it can be a serious health issue, disrupting normal sleeping patterns and disturbing partners as they try to sleep through the noise. Snoring affects more than 90 million adults and their partners. One British survey found that if your spouse snores, by your 50th wedding anniversary you'll have lost about 4 years' worth of sleep.

Besides just feeling tired all the time, people who don't get enough sleep can develop memory and mood problems; they're even at a greater risk of car accidents. Moderate snorers include people who snore every night, but perhaps only when on their backs or only for part of the night. Heavy snorers should see a doctor to make sure they don't have a serious sleeping disorder called sleep apnea.

For light or moderate snorers, here are home remedies that can help you—and your partner—sleep better.
Are you robbing yourself of sleep?
1) A Tennis Ball
If you snore mostly when on your back, put a tennis ball in a shirt pocket cut from an old T-shirt and sew it to the mid-back of your tight pajama top. The discomfort forces you to roll over and sleep on your side, without waking you up. Expert: Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, a board-certified internist and medical director of the Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Centers
20 Moves that prevent tossing andturning

2) Extra Pillows
Try propping your head up with an extra pillow to stop snoring. This opens your airway more, which prevents the back of the throat from collapsing and causing snoring. You can also raise the head of your bed by putting a couple of bricks under the legs of your bed, for example. Expert: Philip Westbrook, MD, founder and former director of the Sleep Disorders Center at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, former president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and former editor of the journalSleep Medicine Reviews
Zen-ify your bedroom for healthier sleep

3) A Humidifier
If a cold or congestion is behind your snoring, one way to unstuff your nose is to run a humidifier in your bedroom at night. This encourages your sinuses to drain, shrinking nasal mucous and improving airflow to reduce snoring. Smearing some Vicks VapoRub on your chest at night will help open your nasal passages too, easing your snoring. Expert: James Herdegen, MD, medical director of the Sleep Science Center at the University of Illinois
Home appliances with unexpected healthbonuses

4) Nasal Strips
If you snore but don't have underlying sinus problems or coughing, you can relieve some of the snoring by wearing an OTC nasal strip, such as Breathe Right. These adhesive strips pull open the nasal passages so they're less narrow, giving you better airflow. Expert: James Herdegen, MD, medical director of the Sleep Science Center at the University of Illinois
Natural relief for 9 common ailments

5) Mouth Guard
A mandibular advancement device, also known as an oral appliance, is shaped like a mouth guard for you to wear at night. It helps keep the lower jaw pushed out, widening the airway and reducing snoring. Studies show it is 90% effective at reducing noise from snoring. It costs $500 to $1,000 and lasts for at least 3 years. Your dentist can fit you for one. For a less expensive option, you can buy an OTC device called a snore guard. You boil it and then fit it into your mouth to create an impression of your teeth and dental structure. The goal is the same: to bring your lower jaw forward a bit to make the back of your throat less crowded. Expert: James Herdegen, MD, medical director of the Sleep Science Center at the University of Illinois
Stop snoring forever

Doctor Killing Patients

Patient hospitalised after seeing relief doctor who killed man on first shift

• Woman taken ill after 'inappropriate' treatment
• Inquiry launched after errors by exhausted GP

David Gray died after Dr Daniel Ubani administered him with 100mg of diamorphine - 10 times the recommended maximum dose



A woman patient had to be taken to hospital after receiving "inappropriate" treatment from the foreign doctor who killed a man with a lethal overdose on his first shift providing out-of-hours GP cover.

The woman's case came to light as police investigated a possible manslaughter charge against Dr Daniel Ubani, a German national of Nigerian origin, over the death of 70-year-old David Gray last year.

The woman in her 50s ended up at Addenbrooke's hospital, Cambridge, within hours of being seen by Ubani. She was the patient Ubani visited immediately before the fatal housecall.

She said: "I class myself as extremely lucky … it made me worried about calling out-of-hours doctors. I am of the age where doctors are still God."

It has also emerged that a woman in her 80s died after being visited by Ubani on the same day as the other two cases. Ubani was called after the woman suffered low blood pressure and a fast heart rate at a care home in Ely, Cambridgeshire.

Ubani reportedly left a prescription but the woman died before staff at the home could get it filled. Police and medical experts concluded that the woman would still, most probably, have died but in all three cases it would have been more appropriate if the patients had been sent to hospital immediately.

The Guardian revealed how Ubani had been on his first UK shift and admitted in a letter of apology to Gray's family that he had been "too tired" to concentrate when he visited Gray in a Cambridgeshire village, Manea, and administered him 100mg of diamorphine, 10 times the normal recommended maximum dose. The case has prompted an investigation by the NHS watchdog, the Care Quality Commission.

Ubani, who flew over from Germany the day before his shift, was self-employed, recruited by an agency called Cimarron, and inducted and assessed by Take Care Now (TCN), the day before his first shift.

The woman has a medical condition called temporal artertitis, an inflammatory disease of blood vessels in the head. Ubani gave her a drug, but after her family became concerned she was taken to hospital and admitted for two days. There were concerns about her treatment but the police did not open a separate inquiry.

The woman was taken ill on the afternoon of 16 February 2008, suffering a headache. She was upstairs in bed when Ubani arrived after her partner and daughter had called the out-of-hours service.

"I felt terrible … your head is exploding in pain. He took my blood pressure and said it was too high. He injected me with this drug and said it would help bring my blood pressure down, which was the reason for my headache. I felt better for a couple of hours but ended up in hospital."

She had been taken there by ambulance after the family raised the alarm and stayed there two days. "The only thing I really remember was there was a problem with the language. I felt Dr Ubani did not speak good English, which doesn't help when you are lying in bed going gaga."

TCN has said its response to the accidental killing of David Gray "has been focused on doing everything we can to ensure such a tragedy could never happen again". When approached to respond to aspects of the woman patient's treatment it said it could not comment on aspects of the investigation concerning Ubani because these might emerge in evidence in any civil action Gray's family might take, or at a coroner's inquest. The Guardian tried to contact Ubani at his surgery in Germany to ask him about the second patient but got no reply.

The case, which has prompted an investigation into out-of-hours services. It came as health services in Cambridgeshire sought to reassure the public. NHS Cambridgeshire has insisted the incident involving Gray was "not a true representation of the quality of care provided by our healthcare professionals 24 hours a day, every day".

Chris Banks, chief executive, said: "The actions of one doctor should not deter anyone from seeking appropriate care. It is important that people do not feel concerned about seeking advice outside of normal surgery hours."

MPs familiar with the Gray case welcomed the inquiry, while Eurojust, the Hague-based European body that mediates between justice systems in member states, confirmed it was trying to set up a meeting between the UK and Germany into how the investigation was handled.

The doctor has been given a nine-month suspended jail term and fined €5,000 (£4,700) by a German court for causing death by negligence. The Department of Health said it was "very disappointed" Ubani was not held to account in the UK.

The scope of the NHS inquiry has not yet been announced but the commission said was "aware of a number of concerns" in relation to care provided by TCN.