CPAP - Sleep Apnoea

I went to see an ENT surgeon yesterday and according to my sleep patterns, snoring, choking he thinks i have severe sleep apnoea and so do i. I am having a sleep study done next week at home.
The ENT said that 1 had three options of treatment -
1. CPAP machine for the rest of my life
2. dental splint
3. surgery
and all in that order.

I got home all angry, thinking that there is no way in hell that i will sleep with a mask on for the rest of my life. No effing way. I am 33 FFS and what a turn off. Can you imagine your DH trying to spoon you and here you are with an oxygen mask on. Yeah right. I can understand if i was 65-75yo, yeah no probs.

I want the surgery. he said that there was a 60-70% success rate if i had the surgery done. Well, i want it.

My Q is has anybody know of anyone who had the throat surgery done, even though their surgeon said CPAP first?

:wall::wall:

:hug: Hun :hug:
No advise, hope someone can answer this for you hun :hug:
I would want surgery too, stuff the mask idea!
Not sexy at all!!! Let alone getting up to pee, to kids etc in the night :wall:

in all honesty, i would probably TRY the mask first - to make sure it makes a difference. yes, sleep apnoea can be diagnosed by the sleep study, but i'd be reluctant to opt for surgery if i wasn't more confident it would work. my mum has a cpap machine - tossed it after about 6 months - she wasn't a fan of it at all

BG - i know these machines are expensive and i don't want to spend several hundred if not $1k-$2k for a machine, which i'll be tossing after 2months too.

What does your mum do now??

TD - my step-dad has a CPAP. It's taken a few different masks, but has made a real difference to both his & my Mum's sleep and his health.

I was dx by an ENT with deviated septum and he recommended surgery, but I never followed up. I don't want surgery on my face (nose). Just too many things could go wrong with no guarantee it will make a difference.

Look up Buteyko. It's a breathing technique that's supposed to help with sleep apnea and heart problems. Takes a while to learn and is about $600 I think.
Buteyko Institute of Breathing and Health - Asthma, Breathing, Sleep Apnoea
There's a few practitioners around Melbourne.

I'd try the dental splint before surgery. What specifically would the surgery be on (nose, adenoids)?

Who are you getting the sleep study through?

ETA: you can also learn Buteyko by DVD, which is cheaper

TD - mum's is in the wardrobe and she just puts up with the sleep apnoea - she is a very unhealthy lady so this is just one more nail in her coffin (yes, that sounds awful - but I say it as i see it - 9 out of 10 times i call or go to her house she is asleep on the couch)

she is too unhealthy to undergo the surgery that may help her, too lazy to set the machine up (it should be used for all sleeping, so day naps as well) - it's just unbelievable

i would try the machine first and see how you go - i think you can hire them short term. if it works, even if it's only UNTIL you can get surgery... i would do anything i could to get sleep to be honest - yes, being spooned is nice, but sleep is more important to a long term happy relationship...

I used to be a sleep scientist. Um, if you have sleep aponea then not using any treatment is really dangerous. You stop breathing in little bits throughout the night and your brain wakes you up just enough to keep breathing, but you dont hit the real deep sleep cos your brain has to keep you awake enough to stay alive. And CO builds up in your blood cos your breathing keeps stopping and that's related to cardiac problems later in life. Not getting deep sleep is related to cognitive problems, depression and weight gain. Some people with sleep aponea have quite serious car accidents related to lack of sleep. An overnight stay will tell you how many times an hour you stop breathing.

Basically a CPAP machine is an air splint to stop your throat closing up (most common type of sleep aponea). Surgery doesnt always work, and if it doesnt you'll need a machine anyway. You dont always need a mask, you can get nasal only. The machines make about as much noise as a air con, some of the newer ones make less. Some people take to it straight away, others take longer. Sometimes dental splints work by keeping the throat open. Some people can develop sleep aponea because they're overweight and can have too much tissue in their throat.

Sleep is hugely hugely important. Basically if you dont sleep, then you risk a whole host of other health and mental problems, including a shortened life span. I understand you need to find the treatment that works for you, but no treatment shouldn't be an option.

When you go for the overnight stay ask for a split one if you can get it. That means you spend half the night without CPAP in order to confirm and gauge the severity of sleep aponea. Then you spend the other half of the night with a mask/nasal and see how it works. Your oxygen saturation will be monitored as well as your brain wave patterns, cos that tells us whether your getting any deep sleep and how well the CPAP is working. Otherwise you'll have to do 2 nights in the sleep centre, and they're not particularly restful :)

TD - DH has severe sleep apnoea.


He did a a few sleep studies at Cabrini, and also went for an xray which showed that he had a smaller than average airway when standing, let alone when lying down. Because this part was past the tonsils/adenoids part, and he also has a small jaw, they did not think surgery was going to fix it. From everything i read, unless it is enlarged anenoids/tonsils, surgery doesn't work. It is very hard for the surgeon to know exactly where is collapsing, and even if they do get that part and fix it, another area can develop later...

DH got diagnosed a week before our wedding at 21 - so the dr also though don't go the CPAP, and said to get the splint. For a start it was over 1k, it reduced but didn't stop the snoring (it was still very loud and i still got bad sleep for 2 years!), it didn't stop all the apneas, he grindes his teeth at night and put pressure on the splint, and it broke twice (first was under warranty and they fixed it - second he almost swallowed it and choked, and this is what made us move to the CPAP).

CPAP is fantastic, i wish we had done it sooner. As it is adjustable pressure, along with a memory chip, it is like a built in sleep study every night. He is supposed to take the chip to be read every 6 months, so they know whether they have set the right paramaters. It stays on the lowest pressure, until it detects a apnoea, and then it increases its pressure to overcome the apnoea, and then lowers again. The older models only have 1 setting, but this can be quite uncomfortable when falling asleep, so the better models are good.

There are like 6 different masks you can choose, some of them are quite unobtrusive.. DH has one of the bigger ones, only because he has a beard and the smaller one pulled on the hair, but as you won't have that problem you can get one with just little nose prongs.

CPAP is the gold standard for sleep apnoea, the only thing that fixes it and the snoring. DH feels so much better than he ever did with the splint, because he is finally getting a good nights sleep. I also feel better as his snoring doesn't bother me. The machine is quiet, like having an aircond hum in the room.

We got ours through resparonics (sp?) in Brighton. The lady's name is Vivianne i think - i will check. She has been great. They have a trial one, where you pay a deposit and a minimal amount and i think you have it for 2 months or something top try and see how you find it (it does take about 4 weeks to get used to havingt he headmask on, but once you are used to that you don't notice it apparently), and then if you buy it you get the hire fee off the purchase price. You can claim it on tax, and some PHI also cover the cost. I think ours was around $1500 in total, but considering it will last a lifetime we are happy.

Anyway, at least get the CPAP trial and see how you go - you will be suprised about how good you feel.

Also, in regards to it being a turn off - they are not as bad as you think, and DH just takes it off (or only puts it on when he is about to fall asleep), its a elastic headband so you can just pull it off and i don't think it will effect your sex life that much TBH.

Good luck, and if you have any qns, please ask.

I can sleep anywhere and i mean anywhere in any position. Several times have i dozed off in heavy traffic and woke to my car beginning to swerve to the other side of the road. So i can understand having quite severe car accidents. I can't drive long distances without the need to pull over and sleep, but i don't so i keep going. I find it hard to keep my eyes open at work, esp. in seminars and meetings.

I'm doing a home sleep study. They give you all the stuff and teach you how to use it and you go home and sleep and take the stuff back the next day. The clinic is at Hawthorn.

My life is run by sleep. I just want to sleep all the time.

With the dental splint, does one gag when putting it in? Does it sit back near your throat, if so...NOPE. not doing that either.

Okay, i could POSSIBLY do the nasal CPAP but definitely not mask.

You have scared me shiatless KF. But thanks for your reply. Greatly appreciate it.
depression tick
weight gain tick

I didn't see your post Yael. Thanks a lot. I guess $1500 isn't too bad, if it's a state of the art one. Okay, so i'm starting to warm to the idea. I'll do some shopping around, but thanks for recommending a supplier!

One of the passages of my noise is quiet narrow. When he pushed this thin tube into it to have a look, it hurt so much even with anaethesia (sp?). He reckons my tongue falls back too, hence the choking, gasping when i wake up from it.

And as the above post says, untreated Sleep apnoea is dangerous. Besides the car accidents etc and other accidents through exhaustion, you are at higher risk of stroke, brain damage etc because constantly putting your body under pressure like that every night for years and years is dangerous.

But more importantly, my DH changed from being a walking zombie to being a lot happier and alive basically!

The sleep studies were good in that we had some good data about how strong the apnoeas were, how frequent, 0s stats etc. I recommend getting a proper one before and after the CPAP to see how it is all going.

Cabrini Brighton does them, and their waiting list isn't too long.

The splints work by pulling your bottom jaw forward. Try it now, stick you bottom jaw out as far as it goes so you have an underbite. It holds it in that position all night. Some people can't have them because you have severe TMJ pain, (the joint just near your ear where your jaw joins your skull) fromt holing their jaw in that position for so long.

TBH the splint was a bigger turn off. If i wanted to kiss and snuggle, it was like him having to take out false teeth, and then he would have the go and brush his teeth becasuse he would have bad breath from having a mouthguard in.. And it makes your drool.

Google cpap machines and have a look at the different masks.

definitely no splint then. That hurt you know. How could you sleep like that? :o

I will google CPAP. I just get images in my head of having this huge oxygen mask on and being connected to a machine which goes "beep, beep,beep" like at a hossie.

Can your DH turn at night with the mask on? Can he sleep on his tummy? I am a tummy sleeper. Getting to sleep on my tummy these big boobs was trouble enough!

Scared is good :) Home studies are good too, you'll probably have 2, one to collect the data and then another one to try out whatever style of mask/nasal you choose. I used to work at Monash, it's really really sneaky but if you go to one of their CPAP clinics, then you can get masks and bits and pieces for free, ask if they have any old equipment, they update pretty frequently and they may give you tubing and bits. Plus extra info can be good too. Good luck with everything, all my clients found it pretty darn life changing :) Quite a lot of ppl also found weight came off just with actually being able to sleep properly, cos sleep also affects metabolism, hooray for no dieting!

FWIW it doesn't beep beep beep it just whirs all inght - you can hear the blooming thing blowing air.

My DF has had his for 2.5 years and used it once. It seems they didn't adjust his to what it was supposed to be and we can't afford to go back for another sleep study. His is a resmed. And yeah it's a turn off, but what can you do when it's your life we're talking about.

Wow. Maybe I should get off my bum and organsise a sleep study too. Do you need a doctor's referral? So they cost much?

it costs about $110 booking fee and the rest is bulk billed for the home study. Google sleep services in hawthorn, that is where i'm getting done, but there are centres all over Australia according to their form. You just need a GPs referral. I got mine from the ENT surgeon.

I will not be fobbed off by this guy to use a CPAP machine, which i know i will end up not using 2-3 months down the track. I'm getting a second if not third opinion.

Those masks are hideous, alien like things.