[lepus]

Watching the way they handled this recall so poorly got me to do whatever it took to reduce my snoring and mild sleep apnea down to almost nothing (mouth/throat/tongue exercises did the most followed by head positioning). The stories of people who relied on their CPAP caught up in it were heartbreaking and nerve wracking.

Edit: I used a combination of the Snore Gym app and Vik Veer's videos on Youtube. After a couple months my snoring became barely audible, but it doesn't always work for everyone. I was tilting my head down at night which blocked off my throat somewhat, so I lifted my head up higher with a bigger pillow.

[addicted]

I hope you’ve done an actual sleep test to confirm your sleep apnea has improved.

Snoring is a useful but not 100% correlated marker for sleep apnea. It’s very possible to improve snoring without reducing the sleep apnea itself.

[Solvency]

I'm 39 years old. Perfect shape, no health issues, don't smoke, don't drink, regular exercise.

About a year ago, Out of NOWHERE I began snoring at night, and only when laying on my back. Never snored my entire life. No other position. But it drives my wife crazy. The problem is we cosleep with our baby, and laying on my back is the safest position.

I don't have apnea so I don't qualify for insurance for any kind of mouthpiece. The ENT just laughs me off like it's no big deal. My nose is fine and he's zero help.

I know it's something to do with my tongue but I have no idea what to do about it.

I've tried thin pillows, thick ones, no pillows. Doesn't help.

[vel0city]

> The problem is we cosleep with our baby, and laying on my back is the safest position.

No, the safest position is not having an infant in your bed with you while sleeping.

[bmitc]

"the safest position ... cosleeping with our baby"

Also, it really depends on what they mean by baby. An infant: probably shouldn't cosleep. A baby older than two to four months: probably fine if you have a large enough bed or side bed and take the proper precautions such as enough space for the baby, a flat surface with no sheets bunched up, no pillows or anything that can fall on them, etc. Some cultures promote sleep sharing yet have lower instances of SIDS than the U.S., and it's perhaps not clear how the studies arrived at it being so unsafe. Plus, as a parent, you are quite aware of the baby's presence. I think parents probably sleep worse during cosleeping, but the baby sleeps and bonds better.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/05/21/6012896...

[vel0city]

> Overall, the two studies suggest bed-sharing — when no other hazards are present — raises the risk of SIDS by about threefold.

[bmitc]

Cosleeping is very common in Japan, and yet, they have much lower SIDS rates than the U.S. does.

[Shadowmist]

> insurance

I was better off buying the machine outside of insurance. Insurance was testing to force me through some sort of rent-to-buy thing where the machine would get taken away if not used a certain number of hours per week. My out of pocket cost for the rental added up to significantly more that just buying the machine outright, and by buying the machine myself I didn’t have to share that data with the insurance company.

[sizzle]

Same for my parents, they really try to squeeze every cent out of us. I straight up bought my folks a medical reclining bed cause insurance was going to make them rent it and obviously cost more in the long run. They prey on the elderly who cant advocate for themselves or are too sick or recovering to figure out financing.

[AlwaysRock]

I had a similar issue.

Absolutely anecdotal but a jaw alignment mouth guard worked for me.

ZQuiet is that one I have: https://zquiet-usa.com/

I havnt used them but Zyppah looks like it is doing the same thing: https://zyppah.com/

The idea is to force your jaw into a slightly different position which keeps your tongue from falling back and blocking your airway.

I tried it before a sleep machine because its like $50. It works well enough and my wife doesnt complain about snoring anymore if I sleep on my back.

[Solvency]

The problem with these generic non-fitted ones I heard is it can really hurt your teeth (possibly even negatively impact them over prolonged use).

[reportgunner]

I thought everyone snores sleeping on their back.

[supertofu]

Uh... no? Not at all.

[photon_rancher]

Nope. It’s common and can be an indicator for apnea etc..

Normally sleeping on your back maximizes airflow instead of creating an obstruction (snoring)

[lupire]

Sleeping on your back is a cause of apnea and snoring. It's basic gravity.

[DiggyJohnson]

Presumably they also can sense how they feel when they wake up. An unencumbered night feels completely different than a night hindered by sleep apnea, snoring or otherwise.

[UseStrict]

Not for me, no change before or after the CPAP machine, but I had an over 100 AHI during 2 separate sleep lab assessments.

[DiggyJohnson]

Wait are you claiming your still wake up feeling like shit even though you are objectively getting better sleep? Or just that you haven't been able to improve your sleep apnea symptoms (AHI count) despite treatment so you still wake up feeling like shit?

Because even if there are some outliers like yourself, I can confidently claim that most people can correlate improvements in sleep apnea symptoms and sleep quality more generally with the way the feel in the morning.

[elric]

One of the many problems with sleep apnea treatment, is that we're treating AHI. AHI is an imperfect proxy for all the things that really happen on account of sleep apnea. Not breathing, underbreathing, micro arousals, clustering of apneas etc. Things like UARS can go undetected nearly forever.

You can have an AHI of 1 and still get zero REM sleep because every time you start going into REM, a respiratory event knocks you out of it.

Apneas and Hypopneas have to last for 10 seconds or more to be included in the AHI count. You can literally have hundreds of respiratory events and have an AHI of zero, but you're still going to feel pretty bleedin' awful.

There is also an RDI, Respiratory Disturbance Index, which includes the AHI events but also includes arousals caused by breathing issues. It is typically much higher than AHI in un(der)treated patients. It's also imperfect, and it's harder to measure.

Then, of course, we come to the CPAP machine reported AHI, which seems to be what insurance and doctors are interested in. In short: the number is garbage. These machines are absolutely TERRIBLE at correctly identifying events. Using those numbers as the basis for any kind of decision is awful.

Maybe one day we'll get CPAP devices with EEG devices in the head strap and with unobtrusive SpO2 sensors that actually work. Maybe then we can start reporting useful numbers which can actually be used in support of treatment.

Until then, it's very much possible to keep feeling like shit even though your sleep apnea is allegedly "under control".

[Shadowmist]

I don’t feel a difference, and in some ways I feel worse, such as when there is a slight leak which leads to my tank running dry. If I don’t use the machine then sometimes in the middle of the afternoon I think about just laying down on the floor wherever I am. I never feel great after using the machine though, and I’ve looked at the log data and it is working. The only reason I keep using the machine is that my spouse gets better sleep.

[DiggyJohnson]

That's interesting, it's still not clear to me that you don't have a faulty setup (avoiding leaks is important!) but nevertheless I appreciate the clarification. Good luck, and I hope you sleep well.

[lepus]

My sleep apnea was already extremely mild to the point where a sleep doctor told me I could just sleep on my side and not experience it, but I appreciate the concern.

[tommica]

I had a coworker that himself is getting a jaw surgery because his bone structure would sometimes make him stop breathing while sleeping for short moments.

His brother apparently was a horrible snorer, but that was due to his nose, that the "skin" would collapse inwards when he took a sharp breath through his nose, instead of expanding. Apparently just having some kind of tape on his nose to stop that from happening while sleeping made a huge difference.

[this_steve_j]

Fellow mouth taper here! It’s a must for shared hotel rooms. I have no idea about the safety or effectiveness for sleep apnea, but it significantly (N=1) improves others’ sleep.

[cebert]

I am not a medical professional but was recently officially diagnosed with sleep apnea and am using a CPAP. I was taping my mouth, which did work. However, I was strongly advised against doing this when I mentioned this to my sleep specialist. It’s possible for your nose to get obstructed and you can risk suffocating.

[david-gpu]

> However, I was strongly advised against doing this when I mentioned this to my sleep specialist. It’s possible for your nose to get obstructed and you can risk suffocating

CPAP user here. I tape my mouth. The risk of suffocating due to a blocked nose seems low to me, for two reasons. First, because I can simply do a one-sided smile and breathe normally through my mouth -- I've tried many times for funsies and it's never failed. Second, because you should always fold the two bottom corners of the tape to facilitate its quick removal in the morning anyway.

The real risk of taping your mouth at night, in my opinion, is if there's any chance of vomiting. Without any other way to go, you would aspirate the vomit and that's bad. What I do to reduce that risk is not eating for three hours before using the CPAP.

So why go through all that effort when one could simply use a full face CPAP mask? That's because it is difficult to produce an airtight seal around your whole face, which is necessary for CPAP therapy to work. Creating a seal around your nose is much easier and the smaller size of a nasal nask allows you to sleep on your side, which for most people means you can get away with using lower pressures, which in turn are more comfortable.

[m_a_g]

Vomitting without waking up is next to impossible unless you are blackout drunk.

[david-gpu]

The concern is not having enough time to remove the tape from your mouth.

Among other reasons this can happen because CPAP therapy can cause you to swallow air unwittingly while you sleep due to the pressure it places on your epiglottis. The subsequent burps can contain a mixture of swallowed air and the contents of your stomach.

[smeej]

I can't even almost vomit without waking up. I was wondering how anyone could sleep through actually doing it!

[elric]

I don't suppose your sleep specialist elaborated? Suffocating in your sleep is really hard, this is why people with sleep apnea don't just die instantly, instead we start to feel awful over a very long period of time. Your body wakes you up when your breathing is compromised (usually in response to an increase in CO2).

Guess they're just covering their arse with that advice.

Also, when you're on nasal CPAP, and pressurised air is being blown into your nose, you'd have to have really weird things happening to suddenly get a nose that's completely obstructed in spite of the pressure....

[KevinGlass]

It would seem the risk of death from the CPAP is far higher than that of mouth taping. A quick google and I can’t find any injuries or deaths from mouth taping but here we have confirmed hundreds of deaths from faulty CPAP machines

[mechhacker]

What tape works for you?

[this_steve_j]

I like the 2” x 100’ 3M surgical tape although i don’t remember what exact variant. Medipore, micropore, maybe both.

[Jenda_]

The GP talked about nose tape (I guess nasal strips), not mouth tape.

I personally use:

- better breath strips from aliexpress

- a 3D print similar to https://noson.eu/

[werdnapk]

Jaw surgery helps open up the airways by moving the jaw forward.

[nerdbert]

Many people can get a mouthguard-type thing that has the same effect.

[Solvency]

No they can't. It costs an obscene amount of money and insurance won't cover it unless you get a sleep study ($$$$$) and it proves you have sleep apnea. Don't have apnea but still snore? Tough luck!

[nerdbert]

My insurance paid for all of that without a quibble after my family doctor made a referral. My insurance company has many customers. So I am going to stick with "many people".

[loco5niner]

Weird. I wonder how I got one then.

[Solvency]

What insurance? What doctor prescribed? ENT + UnitedHealthcare = "haha, no. You need a sleep study and that's not covered either."

[baq]

holy shit I'm the brother except I'm an only child. need to try out the tape

[dkbrk]

You may also want to check out "Max-Air Nose Cones".

[joncrocks]

There's also `nasal strips` - plastic strips with adhesive (like a plaster) to open up the upper-nose.

[JKCalhoun]

Hey, cool, Amazon link to "Max-Air Nose Cones" instead lists AIRMAX Nose Cones. Gotta love that site.

[whyhat]

Hi, Mr. Calhoun! I’m sorry this is such an unorthodox way of reaching out to you, and I know this is probably off topic for the original thread, but I couldn’t really find another way to contact you. I’m trying to get in touch with you about your raspberry pi TV project. I’m a 16 year old high school student, and my best friend loves retro tv and custom gifts, so I figured a great going away to college gift would be a project like this, loaded with all his favorite old (legally obtained) tv shows, and the videos of various musicals we’ve done together. I’ve been looking for a project very similar to yours for a few months now, and the closest thing I’ve found is a video describing a portable version of the project by a YouTube channel called Irish Craig Party. Unfortunately, it was the only video on the channel, the comments were turned off, and they had zero social media/github attached to the channel. I had to keep looking around for similar projects. I was totally willing to do some of the coding myself, but some fundamental challenges like the scheduling or the real time playback were a bit too intense for my admittedly barebones coding skills. Now I humbly come to you. You had mentioned that you were planning to open source it in a thread from a while ago, but you were debugging. Is there any way to get the code for this? I already have the vast majority of the parts, I’m willing to debug and modify it in any way, I just need the foundations. Thank you for hearing me out, I’m sorry for not finding a better way to reach out, and thank you for your time.

[diob]

As someone with apnea due to my anatomy (and AHI of 79 at that), I'm jealous. When I first got diagnosed more than 10 years ago the doctor thought I was obese seeing that. Nope, just bad luck. I'm fit, would hate to see how bad it would be otherwise.

[TylerE]

Hey someone finally beat my high score of 58. I am obese, but I’ve been down as much as 50 pounds and up as much as 40 over my current, and it’s never really made a bit of difference. I have a very “tight” neck and throat and probably a deviated septum as well (on top of chronic nasal allergies/congestion), so yeah, I mouth breath a lot.

I’m due for a new machine soonish and I’m probably going to push for a bipap. I’m on an autos range of 17-20, and I will max that out sometimes. My scores are usually real good (like, sub 1.0), but the lack of headroom is concerning. 20 is as high as my machine (Resmed, luckily) goes, but my understanding is most bipaps go to 25, and the actual bilevel feature will likely be useful as well.

[diob]

The resmed auto I have now is my favorite so far. Unfortunately did look up my old machine and it was one of the philips recalled ones, so that's not great to hear. I think I used it for roughly 6 years.

I did the deviated septum surgery which did help a lot but not for the reason most here say (since mine is anatomy related). It helped because I can now use a nose only mask which I find way more comfortable. I'd recommend it if you end up with headaches or pain due to the mask fit.

Just don't ever do the surgeries around the mouth (where they cut the Palate or stuff like that). Blows my mind they allow those given the terrible long term outcomes with scar tissue. It ends up making your apnea worse.

[tired_star_nrg]

Invisalign actually helped my OSA a ton, that and nasal surgery for deviated septum brought my AHI from 40 down to 8.

[vorador]

Could you detail a bit what exercises you did and how you changed head position? Thanks!

[alliao]

I've always wondered whether strong singer would snore... they got to have pretty decent control as well as well exercised muscles in that area

[dbt00]

I recently saw this study, but it's almost 20 years old, I don't know if there's more recent data available.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1360393/

"Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome: randomised controlled trial"

[exo-pla-net]

Results: significantly less snoring and sleep apnea. N=25

[swsieber]

This deserves its own submission I think.

[fnordlord]

When my band toured and we could afford two hotel rooms, the singer would get one room and the rest of us would take the other. He was by far the loudest snorer of the 5 of us. Obviously just a funny anecdote but definitely not always the case that singers are the quiet sleepers. Or maybe he just needed more singing lessons.

[alliao]

this is hilarious, I cracked up at the loud part. Talented singer for sure with amplification down to boot!

[TurkishPoptart]

If I'm waking up in the middle of the night choking / gasping for air (happens 1x or 2x a week at this point) is that a symptom of sleep apnea? I'll try to talk to a doc about it but I want to make sure I'm on the same page as some of you.

[jtdressel]

Yes, you should get that checked out.

[eek2121]

They should be required to replace all machines. They offered to give me $50 at one point because my machine is old.

I require a bipap with ASV machine due to having complex sleep apnea, and it costs at least a couple grand.

I ended up scrambling to get a replacement. The old one works perfectly fine, but I can’t safely use it due to the recall. Even after insurance I had to pay a grand out of pocket because they make you rent it at first.

[petesergeant]

I cured mine using tirzepatide once a week and fluticasone propionate nightly. Could never really get used to the CPAP.

[clumsysmurf]

There is the possibility TENS may be of use as well

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230803/TENS-machine-may-...

[loceng]

I recently found a line of knowledge-practice relating to holistic dentistry specifically that acknowledges and addresses biomechanical-physiological aspects of the bite. E.g. occlusion issues with the teeth, where the jaw is unable to land and find a comfortable-relaxed position - and so jaw/head muscles continue to engage, spasm, or guard completely - causing a potential systematic cascading failure that has a "ridiculous" amount of severe symptoms possible, and why it's ridiculous - is that you'd think this would be part of mainstream dentistry practices because of how foundational the bite position is, yet it's not mainstream; the first diagnostic is using a device called BioPak, hooked up to the head/face at different position with electrodes, it monitors muscle activity - and can tell which specific muscles are firing-resting and at what rate.

They also use TENS as part of their protocol.

It took me 8 years to stumble upon finding the practice-protocol for a problem I figured I had but couldn't find dentists to solve for it.

[_yb2s]

Any links? What is it called?

[loceng]

The training for dentists and full protocol-processes followed, and has been evolving, is from Las Vegas Institute - https://www.lviglobal.com

They have a directory listing of the dentists who have done their various courses. NOTE: Not all are up-to-date and so be sure to check they have the necessary relevant training, and that the course wasn't taken say 15 years ago; their dentists are recommended to regularly do courses to keep track of the improvements to their processes.

[yareally]

Might be this: https://www.digitaldental.com.au/products/biopak/

[loceng]

Yes, that's one of the tools they use.

The training for dentists and full protocol-processes followed, and has been evolving, is from Las Vegas Institute - https://www.lviglobal.com

[nurettin]

I did none of that. Instead, what worked for me was to change my lifestyle. Paced walk half an hour and lift for ten minutes everyday. Reduce smoking to rare occasions. Eat less, lose weight, and finally get those teeth done.

[dperrin]

With the exception of losing weight (already a 22 BMI) I tried pretty all of this to no avail. Turns out I had a deviated septum and surgery fixed the problem. As a bonus, I can easily breathe through my nose now.

[kortex]

Septoplasty and tubinate reduction surgery was one of the best choices of my life. Lifelong allergy sufferer, being able to truly breathe was profound.

[lm28469]

> tubinate reduction surgery

I've read horror stories about that. Apparently a lot of the problems could be solved by teaching kids how to breathe (no mouth breathing), having a proper diet (chewing), &c. of course once you're fucked you're fucked and you have to go to these extremes to get your life back. It's like our lifestyle is slowly evolving us out of this planet

[vthallam]

I have a deviated septum, but the doctors in the US doesn't think its medically necessary to do Septoplasty and I also have a sleep apnea, come to think I should get this done.

[dperrin]

Not sure on the accuracy or if it applies to you, but prior to getting the septoplasty my ENT did mention it might not make a big difference if overweight or obese and so often doesn’t recommend it in those cases.

For comparison, I used some of those nasal strips before surgery and the post-surgery were very comparable, so that might be an inexpensive option to try? I also recall someone mentioning some sort of nose plug thing from Amazon you could get that does the same thing.

[lepus]

That's great! I didn't want to give the impression that I had the one and only solution to everyone, so what matters is whatever works for you.

[nurettin]

Exactly, I just wanted to present another anecdote which only worked for me. With the hope that it might inspire someone.

[jcims]

Any good references for the exercises?

[elric]

Vik Veer has a couple of youtube videos on some you could try: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNscQ3bGxNk

[jcims]

Oh dang that was super easy!!! Thank you!!