[Treatment] Treating Sleep Apnea with just Mouth Appliance and Back Exercises

[pbklink]

Hi All,

I have had pretty bad sleep apnea for about 5 years. When it got to the point that a Mouth Appliance, would no longer give me a good night's sleep, I did not want to just progress onto CPAP. So I experimented with different techniques. Eventually I figured out that the key to treating my sleep apnea was a specific type of back exercise (done at night time).

I have been successfully using this treatment for 3 years and have now decided to write the treatment/therapy up on my website: paul.klink.id.au

The treatment works really well for me. My breathing is good all night and through the day, I do not suffer from any tiredness due to sleep apnea.

Please note that I am not a health professional. This is just something I have figured out with lots of experimentation with my own sleep. Hopefully this can help others.

Regards, Paul

[Walla Walla]

Glad it works for you.

I don't think ResMed is worried about losing business though.

[DeepBreathing]

G'day Paul. Welcome to Apnea Board.

If your treatment is working well for you, that's great. However after reading through your site in some detail I don't believe your explanation of sleep apnea is correct in any way. There is an excellent animation showing how obstructive sleep apnea works on the first page of the Apnea Board Wiki. http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki You'll note that there is no mention of the back muscles being involved.

The interruption to breathing caused by diaphragm inaction is called central apnea, as it is a failure of the central nervous system to instruct the diaphragm to breathe. This is a neurological condition often related to the amount of CO2 in the blood, or the brain's failure to correctly determine and respond to CO2 levels. It's nothing to do with the back muscles.

Your description of the apnea you experience really sounds to me like a different condition. OSA isn't something which happens once or twice a night - it can happen hundreds of times. People aren't generally aware of each event - they rouse then go back to sleep immediately, and usually have no recollection of this happening. What you describe is very different.

In summary, I'm happy that you've been able to manage your condition, but I don't believe your advice is relevant to people with obstructive or central sleep apnea, for which CPAP / ASV are the gold standards of treatment.

[trish6hundred]

Hi pbklink,
WELCOME! to the forum.!

[HalfAsleep]

From what you’re saying, I’m not sure what question you are asking or what kind of input you’d like to have. Or maybe you just need folks to click through to your blog? Hard to decide.

I also don’t quite understand your aversion to xPAP or ASV (in other words, a machine). There’s certainly nothing intrinsically aversive to a delivery system that prevents you from having nightly near fatalities.

Curious: how did you get diagnosed with a sleep apnea and what were the stats? How do you know the mouthguard was no longer working? Given that apneic events are often not recalled, how do you know that your back exercises have solved your apnea problem? And not just relaxed your muscles so you feel better after sleeping?

[Apnea Infant]

Paul

Some replies to your statements from your website

Quote.........When I first started suffering from sleep Apnea, I was able to manage it by carefully controlling my sleeping position. However that only worked for about a year.........Unquote

How did you know you have sleep apnea? Did you have a sleep study? How did you know then that your apnea was controlled by your sleeping position? How was this gauged? How did you prove to yourself and any others (medical professional) who you might have been reporting to?

Quote.......When this no longer worked, my dentist organised a mouth appliance for me. This was great at first. Just pop it into my mouth at bedtime and no sleep apnea!......Unquote

As noted previously, what/how was the formal confirmation that your sleep apnea( if indeed you did suffer from it) was no longer helped by sleeping position? So did you monitor your sleep apnea with an Oximeter when you used a mouth appliance?

Quote ..............You can suffer from sleep apnea at any time - not just when you are asleep...........Unquote

This is factually inaccurate as you only suffer from SLEEP apnea when ASLEEP.

Quote...........Being able to detect sleep apnea while you are awake allows you to practise this skill so you can do it more efficiently when you wake up at night. It also allows you to get a better understanding of your body; its susceptibility to sleep apnea and patterns which bring it about...........Unquote

Apologies, but the above is almost non sensical. We cannot detect sleep apnea when awake as SLEEP apnea occurs when we are ASLEEP and hence the insidious and dangerous condition. We often are not aware of sleep apnea at night but are aroused and prevented from dying as our brain kicks in to get us aroused and start breathing again and hence the sleep disturbance. Our partners can hear our snoring and rasping and see our cessation of breathing but usually not ourselves.

Quote.............sleep apnea sufferers can experience vivid dreams. So if you wake up in the middle of the night and strongly remember a dream, then it is likely that you have sleep apnea.............Unquote

In fact, it is common for Sleep Apnea sufferers not to remember their dreams as during REM sleep, when dreams occur, the upper airways muscles and most of our bodies are most relaxed and paralysed to stop us from acting out our dreams that Sleep Apnea occurs. I am a case in point as my apneas mostly occur during REM sleep (noted from my in hospital sleep study). So it is inaccurate when you write that Sleep Apnea sufferers experience vivid dreams. It IS the case that the most of us report starting to have and remember our dreams once our PAP therapy treatment is successful.

It is at this point that I have to stop reading your website as I need to continue my day but I shall say this..........It is inaccurate of you to make the comments you do and it is also unhelpful for those who suffer and may be not strong enough (emotionally) to make that trip to the doctor and thus find succour from your inaccurate information. None of us want to have a piece of plastic attached to us at night -it is not sexy nor pretty but I, for one, am thankful that it is giving me re-energised days and prolonging my life as my father was a avid snorer and non-breather at nights and he died prematurely from a stroke (at the age of 58) - a strong indicator for sleep apnea.

[mike888miller]

one thing i dont get is the following:

improving posture ie straightening the cervical spine will always result in less airspace behind max and mandible.

In that way, while you are improving the musscles that you are using for breathing (diaframe instread of fight or flight inducing secondary breathing musscles like scalenes etc)

pushing in the mandible forward will create more space for air to flow, but may have catastrophic impacts on your posture, and in that way seems like a deal with the devil.

i look at it like this: cpap allows me to finally employ a back sleeping posture with is by far the best for postore

[Mosquitobait]

I haven't read your website, but did want to say that whatever worked for you, will only work as long as you continue to do the exercises regularly. My BIL used a digerydoo for several years. It 'eliminated' his sleep apnea (subclinical) and he didn't have close neighbors to annoy. However, after a serious injury, he was no longer able use the digerydoo. His apnea returned. The doc at the VA recommended he first try raising the head of his bed. Snoring was eliminated and continues to be eliminated, so they are considering replacing the bed with a Sleep number bed with a head raise feature. This kind of stuff only works with MILD apnea. If you have anything more than that, it is simply a stopgap (and sometimes a very expensive one) to a cpap machine. Quite a few folks who have gone the dental appliance way have ended up getting TMJ and most medical insurance in the US does not pay for treatment for TMJ (even from a car crash). I applaud you for including your option for possibly delaying using a cpap machine, but you should ALSO point out these disadvantages so someone can make their own decision with ample information.