With the approval, the appliances represent an alternative treatment to CPAP or surgical neurostimulation implants for patients with severe OSA.
Your healthcare provider may encourage you to breathe in steam from the bathroom or try artificial moisturizers, such as sinus sprays or nasal gels.
In general, CPAP is more effective at resolving sleep disordered breathing and improving oxygen saturations, though oral appliances tend to improve symptoms of daytime sleepiness to similar degree as CPAP. The effect of oral appliances on improving cardiovascular outcomes such as hypertension is not clear at this time.
(Get more CPAP care tips here.) And while some researchers have theorized that CPAP might increase the risk of respiratory infections such as pneumonia, studies so far have failed to find a link.
Through a simple-to-use system including the Inspire implant, remote and app, Inspire therapy enables you to control your therapy from the palm of your hand.
, in their prospective study with long-term follow-up, treated 14 patients with moderate to severe OSA with transoral robotic surgery to the tongue base, and additional wedge epiglottoplasty in ten of the patients; there were statistically significant improvements in mean AHI (overall 51% reduction, with normal postoperative sleep study results in 36% of patients), mean Epworth Sleepiness Score, mean oxygen saturations and in quality of life markers (64). It is worth noting that in this study the robust selection criteria included an AHI of at least 15, failure to tolerate CPAP and Porém and importantly, in the context of this article, a BMI of less than 35 kg/m2 and DISE evaluation demonstrating tongue base collapse with or without epiglottic collapse, highlighting the importance of these latter two factors in successful outcomes (64).
Non-surgical options include technical modifications, lifestyle changes and support alongside oral appliances. Surgery can be effective in either facilitating the use of CPAP or in bypassing and improving anatomical obstructions or areas of collapse, which are typically multilevel.
Improper Mask Fit: The most common reason for air leaks around the nose bridge is that your mask is too big or long.
These clinical factors highlight the need to address nasal patency and obstruction. A recent computational fluid dynamics analysis has highlighted this effect of nasal obstruction on CPAP treatment, with a particular correlation between inspiratory pressures and maximal airflow velocity (42).
In order to help the lungs inflate larger, a higher pressure must be applied during inspiration. Since CPAP is one constant pressure, CPAP does not change the pressure applied to help augment tidal volumes and does not contribute to the clearance of CO2.
CPAP may help oxygenation by methods of lung recruitment or keeping airways open but it does not aid in the clearance of CO2 and is not considered a method of non-invasive ventilation (NIV).
Light sleepers may be unwilling to continue with CPAP treatment due to sleep disruptions. Patients more info who don't take well to CPAP may prefer using Inspire to treat their sleep apnea.
Keep Your Mask Clean: It is possible that oils from your face, moisturizer, or make-up are compromising your mask seal. Be sure to thoroughly clean your mask in the morning.
It can also cause excessive daytime sleepiness, which may increase safety risks and accidents or simply make it hard to function. Luckily, several treatment options are available to treat sleep apnea.