<p>As far as bite changes, there are specific jaw exercises that need to be done within 30 minutes of removing the appliance in the morning (takes about ten minutes, many people do while they shower). </p>
<p>As Shawbridge pointed out, success rates of UP3 and LAUP surgeries have not been optimal and get worse over time. Shawbridge, it sounds like your son has a great team, I wish him the best!</p>
<p>My dh has sleep apnea and getting a great cpap has revolutionized things for both of us. I am sleeping so much better now that he isn’t snoring and he has twice the energy and enthusiasm for life now that he isn’t struggling to breathe all night!</p>
<p>I <em>highly</em> recommend going to [www.cpaptalk.com</a> • CPAP and Sleep Apnea Community](<a href=“http://cpaptalk.com%5Dwww.cpaptalk.com”>http://cpaptalk.com) – it is to sleep apnea what this forum is to college admissions. Asking questions there and reading threads will educate you tremendously and save you a ton of time and money.</p>
<p>Also, I highly recommend you get an apap – one that automatically adjusts the pressure based on your needs that moment. That way it works well whether you are on your back or side, breathing well or congested, etc.</p>
<p>I think you will really be happy once you get a good mask and good machine. Check out [CPAP</a> Machines and CPAP Masks for the Treatment of Sleep Apnea](<a href=“http://cpap.com%5DCPAP”>http://cpap.com) for the best prices and service I’ve seen.</p>
<p>Just as a followup, since a lot of people don’t realize this…while most people with obstructive sleep apnea snore (often quite loudly), you can indeed have it without snoring. I don’t snore either (and to defy another common image of sleep apnea patients, I’m not overweight or obese). My upper airway was damaged a bit when I was a newborn (I was two months premature), and this is probably a major cause of my apnea (as well as being the reason that I get worse coughs than just about anyone I know when I get sick).</p>
<p>Being just a tad cynical, I would love to know the percentage of individuals who are tested for sleep apnea and found to have the disorder. I would be willing to be the number is real close to 100%.</p>
<p>edad-
While I don’t know the % of people tested who have apnea, but there are several degrees (eg mild obstructive sleep apnea vs severe). The sleep study involves (this is a very cursory explanantion-- someone please do a follow up for me here) monitoring the person’s number (if any) of apnic and hypopnic episodes during sleep, and montiers eeg, etc. Keep in mind the people being tested are a self selected group who are already concerned about sleep. If they tested every person, the # of people diagnosed would certainly be smaller. Oh, and I have seen reports that do not find a dx of apnea.</p>
<p>edad, I know cynical can be a good trait, but we are having a serious discussion here. I used to find my husband “lost” in the BR because he would be so deeply deprived of oxygen and restorative sleep. He did not snore, but he would stop breathing for long spells. He didn’t walk till he was 2.5 yrs old…which no one mentioned to me till long after we were married…I think he also had problems at birth…cried for two months, and I believe his apnea is part neurological failure of some kind. Even on Cpap he is so out of it at night, that I don’t think he could be of any use in a fire, or if I needed help. </p>
<p>We used to make fun of him in the evenings because he opted to stand in the room after 8pm to chat with the family or when the TV was on…we didn’t realize he was trying hard to stay awake and if he sat down he became almost asleep immediately. Cpap has restored him to at least 12 hours a day of “normal” along with provigil. It is very sad to realize he can’t make it without both things daily, frankly. Every patient is different. He can’t be behind the wheel of a car without this regimen. I hope they make further progress in Cpap treatment and sleep studies. I think he would be on disabilty without it.</p>
<p>I am a “Night Person” so I am now relieved of the process of watching this drama all night long…I can trust the machine from keeping him out of harms way during the night.</p>
<p>People only get tested when they have other traits of the problem, so a high % will test positive. I attended a program to learn about OSA and all 15 students took a watchpat monitor test the night after the first day. No one tested positive (the instructor said usually one or two per class does). The test gives print outs like an EKG, so any trained person can read and interpret it.</p>
<p>I am sure some people have serious disorders that require treatment. I also see that there is a substantial new healthcare business segment involved with OSA diagnosis and treatment. Maybe this disorder was ignored and underdiagnosed in the past, but it seems distinctly possible that there are current incentives which could lead to overdiagnosis and unnecessary treatments.</p>
<p>edad: The criteria for diagnosing OSA are pretty objective. I’m not going to say that they are <em>entirely</em> objective, because the data are collected by imperfect measurement tools, but they are still pretty objective.</p>
<p>I can say that without severe symptoms I would probably never have been tested for apnea. I imagine that people without symptoms don’t have any reason to have a sleep study done, so I would expect the rate of apnea diagnosis to be very high. </p>
<p>The difference in my energy level is amazing after just 2 weeks. I sleep through the night and my husband says I haven’t snored or stopped breathing at all. My sleep doctor wants me to see the cardiologist in a few weeks to see if I can be taken off the medication I’ve been on the past few months. The sleep doctor is convinced my apnea caused the heart problem. So you can count me in the “non-cynical” camp.</p>
<p>in all honesty, Cpap is treatment but not cure. My husband is really disabled. I can’t let him fly on an airplane on red eyes for obvious reasons. If he sat down in a lobby of an airport with a missed flight, he probably could not be roused or reason himself to the right gate. Although some people who must fly for employment have figured out how to do Cpap in first class overnight flights… CPap machines are allowed on board as extra hand luggage but slow you down at security. If his planes cancel out, he can’t sit there and take the one at 10:00 pm…when the provigil wears off, he might fall asleep while waiting for a car or taxi and have everything he owns stolen. He checks into airport hotels and gets the early morning flight. He takes extension cords into the woods for camping with our sons and uses cpap in a tent. Otherwise he is fairly incoherent and slow the next day. Backpacking is no longer an option. REM restorative sleep is magic for health and will hurt you if it is missing. Aging is hard enough.</p>
<p>Two kinds of sleep apnea are being discussed. CPAP will help with obstructive sleep apnea, but some people also have a central componenet to their apnea, which obviously relieving obstruction will not treat. </p>
<p>Yes, there is a correlation with weight and sleep apnea, and correlations of weight with a lot of other health problems. Feeling rotten from lack of sleep doesn’t make it easy to try to diet. CPAP doesn’t treat other underlying causes of obesity, either (can you imagine the late night TV ads if it did?).</p>
<p>I don’t understand the problem with a high yield of apnea for those undergoing sleep studies. Physicians choose patients likely to have the disorder for the testing. One needs the proof before starting the therapy, as well as the parameters to use with treatment. Insurance companies won’t pay without justification for either testing or treatment- physicians know this and don’t suggest testing for every snorer. The data generated by testing is very useful in determining treatments, it is amazing how much useful information can be gathered with the testing and by the CPAP machine.</p>
<p>Just a quick follow-up to my earlier post on surgery. Yesterday was 6 weeks from my son’s surgery. Last night, he couldn’t fall asleep until after 2 because he wasn’t tired. That in and of itself would never have happened when he was on the CPAP. This morning, he got up at around 9:30 or 10 and was alert and happy. Much more alert than after a good night on CPAP, which was a lot more alert than the zombie-like state of a night without CPAP. He looks better and sounds better. We are all thrilled, though we will await new sleep studies in July when the soft tissue should have calmed down fully. In this past week, he’s been very alert and active one day and then tired the next. But, alert beats the past two years by miles.</p>
<p>He was told by the ENT that studies suggest with the hyoid suspension on top of other procedures, the probability of success over the long-term (don’t know how long they’ve actually measured) was much higher (90%?) without relapse IF the patient’s weight didn’t increase by 20%. He told my son, who had gained weight eating to stay awake with sleep apnea, to weigh himself on one day per week, record the weight, and figure out what high calorie item he’d cut out of his diet if the weight went up at all (my son said candy), and to work out. My son has been to the gym 5 out of 6 days since then for cardio every day and weights one day. With a teenage male metabolism, losing weight is easier than for middle-aged folks, but I think my son could afford to lose 10 pounds (he lost a first 10 or so while on a liquid diet). He told my son to put a picture of a CPAP machine up in his bedroom to remind him of what he would be doing if he gained weight.</p>
<p>audiophile, what is LAUP? My own instinct is that the hyoid suspension and genioglossus procedures are the big game-changers. Without structural changes, the soft tissue can still be affected by the same structural problems. But who knows?</p>
<p>wow…I send you my best wishes for your brave son’s improvement in quality of life after all you have been through. No one seems interested in doing any procedure on my spouse. Although I personally suspect a neurological dimension, his uvula is huge and definitely part of the problem but local docs never seem to recommend surgery due to bleak outcomes for your trouble. I have known my spouse since he was a mere child of 20, so I know his REM sleep has never been “normal.” He alway said he never dreams for instance. In his younger days he could however study till midnight and he was better but the decline in restorative sleep was slow and steady into adulthood. I hope that the obstructive factors in his body will be addressed if there are advances in surgery.</p>
<p>Faline2, surgery on just the uvula (called UPPP) succeeds maybe 1/3 of the time and then there is a substantial probability of relapse. There are lots of nerve endings in the palate and thus the recovery is very painful. I think the data suggest that it may worth the pain and money only if you are also going to fix the structural factors with the hyoid and genioglossus procedures. But, I’m no expert here.</p>
<p>well, I sure am pleased your son is getting some benefit…I will have to look up the other procedures and consider further evaluations for my husband but he has received a higher level of functioning so far with Cpap plus provigil. All improvements disappear though with removal of either…</p>
<p>He also found improvement with both CPAP and Provigil (though he liked some herbal supplements better than Provigil), and problems if he forgot either one. But, he was still always tired. We’re really hoping the combination of procedures is better than CPAP and Provigil. So far so good, but we’ve got to wait to see.</p>
<p>I was diagnosed with sleep apnea in June after a trip to the hospital with severe chest pains. I was visiting my parents in another state and woke up around midnight with severe chest pains that would not subside. I was taken to the E.R. and told my EKG was not normal at that time so they kept me for every imaginable heart test. Fortunately, all my results were normal and the cardiologist asked if I had ever had a sleep study. I’d had a sleep study done two years ago because of heavy snoring and periods of apnea witnessed by my husband. At that time, it was only mild and I trained myself (with tennis balls sewn in the back of a big night shirt) to sleep on my sides. The sleep study in June showed that my apnea had worsened and the doctor said I needed cpap treatment. Because I am extremely claustrophobic, I had a very tough time getting used to it. I have a very petite nose that would not allow me to use the nasal buds. I am also a mouth breather, so I had trouble with the nasal mask, too. I now use a small Mirage Quattro mask that covers my mouth and nose. I wish they made it in extra small because I occasionally feel air escaping from the top of the mask around my nose. It has taken me months to get used to having a mask on my face and there are times when I remove the mask during my sleep. On the mornings I wake up with the mask still on, I consider it to be a victory! I hope there is a time when I look forward to going to bed with a mask on my face instead of dreading bed time. I know the importance of using the mask, I just have a hard time embracing it.</p>
of 20, so I know his REM sleep has never been “normal.” He alway said he never dreams for instance. In his younger days he could however study till midnight and he was better but the decline in restorative sleep was slow and steady into adulthood. I hope that the obstructive factors in his body will be addressed if there are advances in surgery.</p>