[Treatment] Very frustrated after radiofrequency tongue base reduction surgery

[phitom816]

I was diagnosed with moderate sleep apnea a few years ago. I've always been only able to sleep on my sides but not my back. Whenever I fall asleep and rolled on my back by accident, I will just get suffocated, which is a really terrible and scary experience. CPAP didn't work well on me. However, without it I was always able to sleep normally on my sides.

But things has changed this year. I went to an ENT, and had a DISE (Drug-Induced Sleep Endoscopy) and a radiofrequency tongue base reduction. Ever since the procedure, I'm still not able to sleep on my back. And I'm no longer able to fall asleep easily, even on my sides. When I finally fall asleep on my side after lying in bed for an hour or 2, I started to snore. I never snored in the past. Besides, I constantly wake up during the night. I'm only able to sleep 3-4 hours a night. I no longer can enter deep sleep, because I constantly choke and need to grasp air during sleep. 

My doctor said that during the DISE, he found my tongue tissue totally collapsed and blocked my airway when I was on my back. Now the blockage is getting better for sure. He always showed it to me with a nasal scope device in the last office visit. When I'm awake now, I might be able to breathe a little bit better, and I can sing better I think. However, my sleep has definitely got worse. It started impacting my everyday life. I feel tired and unrestful most time of the day. 

I just feel so bad about myself. I never thought a procedure that is considered safe and minimal invasive can make my situation worse.

[SarcasticDave94]

I'd guess it's time for CPAP therapy again. These surgeries have a low success rate of restoring better sleep than does CPAP.

[OpalRose]

When you say that Cpap didn't work for you, can you be more specific?
Were you unable to get good results, or was it just uncomfortable?

What Cpap did you use? Fire it up, and be sure there is an SD card in it.

Next, download OSCAR. Follow the links in my signature line to help guide you.
When your ready, post a Screenshot of the daily page here for review.

Although, there is nothing you can do about a surgery that did not work out as you thought, you can however get back on a proven therapy. At least we can help with that.

[Sleeprider]

Let me offer a different take on "positional sleep apnea" and offer a less invasive therapy suggestion. These wiki articles were written for the many CPAP using members that still had clusters of obstructive apnea, even with therapy. We found a simple soft cervical collar was usually very effective in eliminating these events. I hope you will take the time to read these short articles.
Positional apnea: http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...onal_Apnea
soft cervical collars http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...cal_Collar

[Too Sleepy]

In case anybody looked up "radiofrequency ablation to tongue base" in an attempt to find anecdotal experiences- there is an initial swelling that takes weeks to months to reduce. Initially your tongue base will be MORE swollen and therefore obstruct your airway even worse than pre-surgery. Given that this person made one post and disappeared, never to be seen again, I presume that enough time passed for their swelling to go down and they probably did start feeling better.

I'd bet that this person made this post not too long after the procedure, which is why they felt that their sleep was even worse.

I have had the procedure done (well technically a superficial form of it) and have initial swelling that makes my tongue base appear larger than pre-surgery, my sleep is worse than before. However, my surgeon advised me that this would take weeks to go down.