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Does anyone here also have sleep apnea or uars? How are you treating it? I would love to hear your story
I was diagnosed with sleep apnea, not because of any obvious problem, but because my psych wanted to put me on drugs that might make me drowsy, so he wanted to make sure I was OK in that regard. A sleep study showed that I had mild to moderate sleep apnea.
I spent the following two years trying various things: turbinate reduction surgery, and 6-9 months adjusting my CPAP to no avail. No matter what we did, my AHI never went below 20. In fact, all of that actually caused severe insomnia that took me another 3 or 4 months to finally resolve.
I continue to look for ideas and new technology, but I'm not willing to do anything surgical. These days I just deal with it by getting at least 9 hours of time in bed (not 9 hours of sleep, because the result is more like 6 hours of actual sleep). I still wake up 3-4 times per night, but it's just enough—along with coffee—to continue to function.
Yes. To make a long story short, it was a lifestyle change that solved it for me. Basically my sleep apnea was due to irritation in my airways due to stomach acid leaking towards the throat at night, while laying down. That stomach acid was going up because of high levels of work stress and late evening meals, as well as unhealthy snacking (though I am a healthy and active individual, the effect was there). I now nev…
I just need 12.5mg before bed.
Mine is nonpositional. CPAP pressure is 16 and allows me to sleep on my back, but I'm ususlly a side sleeper. I use nasal pillows after an over-the-nose mask for the first 6 or 7 years. If I lost weight it'd probably help but I also have a deviated septum and an elongated soft palate / large tongue for my mouth size. So a perfect storm for apnea. Fortunately CPAP works well for me and I've never had an issue with mask fit or any other interference with sleep, aside from the air noises my new machine makes. I sleep with earplugs or earbuds with rain sounds (also have mild misophonia so the sound of the machine rising/falling as I breathe in and out, vs my original actual constant pressure machine, drives me bonkers) and/or a fan in my room to cover up the breathing sounds :)
Sorry to hear that your options have not worked -- it sounds like you've tried a lot of things. Is it worth getting another sleep study to see if there are any other changes that might explain the issues? I know my first doctor/study was nowhere near as complete as my 2nd one. It was the 2nd one that raised my pressure from 11 to 16 and that made a huge difference.
Good luck!
1. Inspire is an implant that electrically activates the muscles in your airway. You program it with a Bluetooth remote. It require that you have tried CPAP without success, but it works very well for some people. https://www.inspiresleep.com/
2. Apnimed is developing pharmaceutical interventions for sleep apnea. They’re conducting clinical trials; you could try to get involved in one of those to see if your apnea is improved by one of those drug candidates. https://apnimed.com/pipeline/
Yes. To make a long story short, it was a lifestyle change that solved it for me. Basically my sleep apnea was due to irritation in my airways due to stomach acid leaking towards the throat at night, while laying down. That stomach acid was going up because of high levels of work stress and late evening meals, as well as unhealthy snacking (though I am a healthy and active individual, the effect was there). I now nev…