I remember a violin player back in my youth Orchestra days who always wanted to sleep in the same room as woodwond players (3 people in every room) because "string players snore".
Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (2006)
161–170 of 184 posts
Re: Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (2006)
#162I couldn't find a CPAP mask that worked for me, even after 6 months of trying across 4 different masks. Then I read studies showing oropharyngeal exercises can help treat sleep apnea. Originally I used https://snoregym.com/ for that, but then I switched to simply chewing gum once a day (being careful to chew on both sides of my mouth roughly equally), and also chewing my food a bit longer. It totally cured my sleep a…
Have you tested it with a polysomnography?
Re: Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (2006)
#163Re: Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (2006)
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is pretty easy if you use the Wim Hof method. Breathe deep and fast for a few minutes, to the point where you get dizzy or feel weird sensations. Then exhale and stop breathing while being fully relaxed. I've done this while hooked to a pulse oximeter and it takes quite a while before O2 actually starts dropping (especially because the effect can be delayed in your limbs), but once it starts you'll pretty quickly…
Interesting. As I noted above (though typo O2 -> CO2), I used the same technique you describe, which I learned in free diving, and was not able to get below 98%, at altitude.
I'm quite sure no freediving instructor would ever teach you this particular method, because it is a surefire way to die underwater on your first attempt. Free diving breathing techniques usually revolve around lowering your heart rate, not lowering CO2. Wim Hof trainers will also tell you to never to use this method when near water.
As for the specifics that may have prevented you from doing what you wanted: If you breathe too shallow or too slow, you won't clear enough CO2. In freediving this is normal (even wanted), but for Wim Hof practice it means you didn't do it right. You really have to breathe so deep and fast that you enter an uncomfortable zone. It's not unlike physical exercise, except it's mostly mental.
Re: Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (2006)
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is plenty of proper science on this. Weight gain does not cause obstructive sleep apnea until you get into extremes (e.g. huge necked bodybuilders or people with so much fat on their chest that they physically struggle to move it to breathe). Sleep apnea makes it harder to lose weight and easier to gain weight. Having sleep apnea and being heavier can make sleep apnea worse. Losing weight quickly can make sleep…
At least in the US my understanding is insurers don't generally support BiPAP because it's more expensive. Surgery costs more, has extended recovery time, is more risky, and is less effective at the broader population level; if it works, it may not work forever. For a lot of people, CPAP is good enough, and so it's currently the standard.
BiPAP is only more expensive for artificial reasons. It's the same hardware just with a different algorithm. CPAP machines are around €/$500, BiPAP can be more than twice as much. But if you take into account that they last 5-10 years, and that my local hospital charges my insurance €90/month for leasing a CPAP device, it quickly becomes apparent how much of a cash grab that is.
Patient care should be at the top of the list, especially for something as important as sleep. But saving a few bucks in the short term seems to be more important. But people with improperly treated sleep apnea still suffer many of the same effects of people who aren't treated at all.
Re: Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (2006)
#166A friend of mine started "blowing air into water with an straw" (making bubbles) very seriously. I was very skeptical to say the least; but after a couple of months the effects have been very eye opening. Not only it has helped sleep apnea and snoring but also helped with reducing their weight. They had an online group and most participants reported the same. The wight loss was reverted when they stopped for some per…
Is the weight loss just from sleeping better and therefore making better food choices?
My Dr explained to me that proper sleep is important for the body to "reset" chemical balances and metabolism. It is still calories in vs out, but you are more likely to store the calories than burn them due to the "metabolic system" being out of whack due to poor sleep.
Re: Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (2006)
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. As I noted above (though typo O2 -> CO2), I used the same technique you describe, which I learned in free diving, and was not able to get below 98%, at altitude.
I'm quite sure no freediving instructor would ever teach you this particular method, because it is a surefire way to die underwater on your first attempt. Free diving breathing techniques usually revolve around lowering your heart rate, not lowering CO2. Wim Hof trainers will also tell you to never to use this method when near water. As for the specifics that may have prevented you from doing what you wanted: If you…
> I'm quite sure no freediving instructor would ever teach you this particular method, because it is a surefire way to die underwater on your first attempt
Definitely no instructor involved, just a dumb 20 year-old living in Puerto Rico. It admittedly was dangerous, but I am living evidence that it was far from a "surefire" way to die. It was one of a hundred ways in which I put my life at risk during my 20s. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> As for the specifics that may have prevented you from doing what you wanted: If you breathe too shallow or too slow, you won't clear enough CO2.
I'm confident I was doing it sufficiently well to accomplish a longer period of breath holding than I otherwise would have been able to sustain, as evidenced by having done so (in addition to the usual symptoms of lightheadedness, confusion, loss of vision, near-syncope -- yes I agree quite uncomfortable). I know people on HN love to idolize Wim Hof, but in this context minute ventilation is not that difficult of a concept; I'm usually able to estimate the response in a paralyzed patient's PCO2 fairly well when making changes to their tidal volume and rate.
I didn't search for too long, but here's at least one relevant document, in which otherwise untrained subjects were able to achieve a substantial reduction in CO2 (17.4 vs 29.0) with a mere 15 seconds of hyperventilation, leading to an extra 23 seconds of breath holding prior to involuntary breathing moments. The peripheral O2 sat nadir in the hyperventilation group appears to have been identical to the non-hyperventilation group after the first trial (Fig 8b, looks like ~94%) and was only statistically significantly lower on trials 2-5: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10363065/>
Re: Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (2006)
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least in the US my understanding is insurers don't generally support BiPAP because it's more expensive. Surgery costs more, has extended recovery time, is more risky, and is less effective at the broader population level; if it works, it may not work forever. For a lot of people, CPAP is good enough, and so it's currently the standard.
BiPAP is only more expensive for artificial reasons. It's the same hardware just with a different algorithm. CPAP machines are around €/$500, BiPAP can be more than twice as much. But if you take into account that they last 5-10 years, and that my local hospital charges my insurance €90/month for leasing a CPAP device, it quickly becomes apparent how much of a cash grab that is. Patient care should be at the top of t…
For BiPAP i could buy that.
For surgery, it turns out there are higher rates of it being the improper treatment and partial or full failure, and you still might need CPAP anyways. And that’s on top of the fairly standard and obvious preference for non invasive treatments in general.
I will say a fairly non invasive surgery that is much easier to consider is fixing a deviated septum; it probably won’t fix your apnea, but it being deviated is probably not helping.
Re: Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (2006)
#169There seems to be a typing mistake. The embouchure should have diameter of 2.8-3.2 centimeters, not millimeters. Perhaps that can be done DIY from an PVC pipe with an hot air gun or a gas burner to soften and shape the end. "Participants received a standardised acrylic plastic didgeridoo that was developed by the instructor in collaboration with Creacryl GmbH (Ebmatingen, Zurich, Switzerland, and costs €80 (£43; $94)…
Someone mixed up their oboe and didgeridoo instructions
Re: Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (2006)
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
BiPAP is only more expensive for artificial reasons. It's the same hardware just with a different algorithm. CPAP machines are around €/$500, BiPAP can be more than twice as much. But if you take into account that they last 5-10 years, and that my local hospital charges my insurance €90/month for leasing a CPAP device, it quickly becomes apparent how much of a cash grab that is. Patient care should be at the top of t…
For BiPAP i could buy that. For surgery, it turns out there are higher rates of it being the improper treatment and partial or full failure, and you still might need CPAP anyways. And that’s on top of the fairly standard and obvious preference for non invasive treatments in general. I will say a fairly non invasive surgery that is much easier to consider is fixing a deviated septum; it probably won’t fix your apnea,…
I share your concerns about surgery. The way I understand it, the difficulty lies in choosing the right surgery (or surgeries) for the right patient. The supposed gold-standard diagnostic approach is a drug induced sleep endoscopy, where an ENT looks at your airway while you sleep. The problem is that being sedated is not the same as being asleep. It's possible to do this "right", but that is much more time consuming than just shooting people up with propofol and scoping them while they're knocked out.
One thing to keep in mind is that surgery might still be useful even if it doesn't get you off CPAP: being able to use lower CPAP pressures could increase comfort and adherence.
I've been putting off my own septoplasty because it all sounds extremely unpleasant, so yeah.