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Sleep Apnea Surgery: the FOX News Interview

Sleep Apnea surgery vs. CPAP: a recent FOX News interview provides some colorful commentary on the battle unfolding between proponents of either treatment option. During the interview, FOX News interviews Dr. Jennifer Walden, a doctor who is presented to us without any information other than she is affiliated with New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital. The topic of the interview is one which we have reported here, that Sleep Apnea kills. So far, so good: an interview with a trained medical… Continue

Added by The SleepGuide Crew on January 14, 2009 at 12:00pm — 12 Comments

Bionic Sleep Apnea Patient

A publicly traded company in Canada made an announcement yesterday that would allow us Sleep Apnea folks to give the Six Million Dollar Man some stiff competition, at least when it comes to healthy breathing at night. The company, Victhom Human Bionics Inc., filed a patent related to "decod[ing] what the lungs and the airway passages are reporting to the brain to identify [when someone with Sleep Apnea] is in distress and is in need of help. . . [O]nce apneas [or hypopneas] are… Continue

Added by The SleepGuide Crew on January 13, 2009 at 12:00pm — No Comments

Sleep Apnea Death

Sleep Apnea can kill you. There, I said it. I didn't want to say it, because I prefer to emphasize the positive aspects of treating Sleep Apnea rather than dwelling on the negative consequences of not treating it. But some among us will only respond to fear, so for their benefit, I'm putting this stark message "out there."



What's the proof that Sleep Apnea can kill? The study published by Terry Young, Ph.D. and her colleagues at the University of Wisconsin at Madison is… Continue

Added by The SleepGuide Crew on January 9, 2009 at 3:00pm — 51 Comments

CPAP Treatment: Top 3 Questions To Ask Your Doctor

Chances are that if you haven't followed up with your doctor in years, or at all, about your CPAP therapy, something isn't quite right in CPAP-Ville. PAP treatment is as much an art as a science, and it requires continuous monitoring and attention, preferably between you and your physician. That said, I'm finding that doctor follow-up is more the exception than the rule. So you the patient must take the initiative. If you haven't seen your doctor in awhile, make an appointment, and… Continue

Added by Mike on January 7, 2009 at 2:00pm — 2 Comments

Sleep Apnea Diagnosis in... a Restaurant?!

My sleep certified physician once let me in on his little secret: he can diagnose Sleep Apnea in a person while sitting across a crowded room from that person in a restaurant. Now, he qualified this by saying that he'd only be able to do so with 85% accuracy, but still... it came as quite a shock to me. Especially when he told me how he'd do it. It wasn't by looking at their waistline or gut. It certainly wasn't from hearing them snore. No, he'd do it just by looking at their jaw. If… Continue

Added by Mike on January 4, 2009 at 3:00pm — 6 Comments

Sleep Apnea Treatment: My ABCD's

Here's a simple way to remember what I wish I had known at the very beginning of my own Sleep Apnea treatment: my ABCD's of Sleep Apnea treatment. The hope is that you will not have to stumble over or run into as many obstacles as I did.



A is for Attitude

The key is that oft-repeated phrase: "whether you think you can, or you think you can't, either way you're right." Sleep Apnea treatment has much to do with attitude. What got me over the hump is realizing that… Continue

Added by Mike on January 1, 2009 at 5:30pm — 11 Comments

Symptoms of Sleep Apnea

If you or someone you know has one or more of the following symptoms, it may be Sleep Apnea:



• Snoring

• Gasping for air or stopping breathing during sleep

• Falling asleep in inappropriate situations, such as while driving, at a movie, or sitting in a meeting

• Waking up feeling unrefreshed

• Large neck size (greater than 17” in men; greater than 16” in women)

• Morning headaches

• Getting up during the night to… Continue

Added by Mike on December 31, 2008 at 2:00pm — 17 Comments

Price Controls for CPAP

It's a dirty little secret of Respironics, ResMed and other CPAP manufacturers, but one that touches the lives of each and every one of us, especially in these difficult economic times: vendors of CPAP equipment aren't allowed to advertise CPAPs below a certain price that the CPAP manufacturers dictate. The result is that you will more often than not pay more… Continue

Added by The SleepGuide Crew on December 30, 2008 at 3:09pm — 2 Comments

CPAP Cleaning: A Lazy Man's Method

I'm a fairly black and white kind of guy, so when I first got CPAP, I actually read the care and maintenance instructions. I'm also a fairly lazy kind of guy, so half-way through reading them, I stopped and gave up. I never liked puzzles, and assembling and disassembling and caring for a mask, humidifier, CPAP, tubing, etc., all seemed to me like a puzzle from hell, each night for every remaining night of my life.



Then my physician, who is at Stanford Medical Center and is… Continue

Added by Mike on December 29, 2008 at 1:30pm — No Comments

PAPer "Bill of Rights" --- Your Feedback Needed

DRAFT VERSION



Friends,



Today, we face an unacceptable situation with Sleep Apnea. Sleep Apnea is a chronic, serious disease that approximately 30 million Americans have, only 10% of whom have been diagnosed. Although the disease is completely treatable with the “gold standard” of positive airway pressure (“PAP”), of those who… Continue

Added by Mike on December 28, 2008 at 4:00pm — 9 Comments

Respironics, ResMed and Fisher & Paykel

Here at SleepGuide, ResMed and Respironics have always loomed large as the big boys of the Sleep Apnea industry. Bad news for us, the patients, because that kind of duopoly can't be good for competition and innovation, the two forces we see as critical to moving these devices forward in terms of ease of use and comfort for patients. So we were delighted to see… Continue

Added by Mike on December 27, 2008 at 4:30pm — 7 Comments

Sleep Apnea Home Testing

If you have no idea what happened on March 13, 2008, you're in good company. What happened on that day rocked the world of absolutely nobody except for the owners of sleep labs across the country: Medicare, for the first time ever, agreed to reimburse for CPAP equipment prescribed pursuant to home tests, rather than under the ordinary in-laboratory sleep… Continue

Added by The SleepGuide Crew on December 25, 2008 at 4:30pm — No Comments

I Have A Dream -- Ideal CPAP use

I have a dream for CPAP use that I announced in a previous blog posting on this site that has sparked a fair amount of controversy which I did not anticipate. The agenda was as follows:



• Users should use their machines at least 5 hours a night, almost every… Continue

Added by Mike on December 24, 2008 at 1:30pm — 8 Comments

My Sleep Apnea Story

I might have had Sleep Apnea my entire life, but even when I started to wake up in a panic feeling as if I were suffocating to death, I didn't know it. I chalked it up to stress at work, and the feeling of trudging through each day without any energy to some form of depression. Wrong on both counts. How did I find out? During a casual conversation with a friend… Continue

Added by Mike on December 23, 2008 at 2:22pm — 3 Comments

Old Sleep Apnea Supplies

Unlike a fine wine, CPAP supplies don't get better with age. In fact, they tend to deteriorate and become less effective over time, and be replaced by ever more comfortable and innovative CPAP technologies. So we're often taken aback to hear that someone's been using the same mask for years, not having even replaced the cushions. Ditto for the machines… Continue

Added by The SleepGuide Crew on March 9, 2009 at 3:00am — 8 Comments

Trouble in Sleep Apnea Paradise

As you probably can tell by my other blog entries, I love CPAP. Since using it, I've felt energized when I wake up in the morning, with a zest for being active during the day instead of bumming around and wanting to sleep in. But even I hit speed bumps from time to time, and the other night was one of them. Around 4:30 a.m., I felt as if I were choking, unable… Continue

Added by Mike on December 20, 2008 at 3:30pm — 2 Comments

Getting the Sleep Apnea Run-Around: Bill's Story

Sleep Apnea is hard enough as it is without doctors making our lives even harder. Of course not all doctors are ignorant, stupid and incompetent. But Bill's doctor certainly is.



Bill is a dear friend of the family who has severe sleep apnea, along with a host of other problems such as diabetes and heart disease, probably brought on in part by not… Continue

Added by Mike on December 19, 2008 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Sleep Apnea: A Patient-Oriented Agenda

We at SleepGuide will always stand up for the Sleep Apnea population first and foremost, without regard for what's best for the manufacturers, insurance companies, DMEs, doctors and others whose interests may not always be perfectly aligned with our own. This Sleep Apnea population includes anyone with Sleep Apnea, whether using dental devices, CPAP, surgery, or… Continue

Added by Mike on December 17, 2008 at 2:30pm — No Comments

Fed to Audit Sleep Industry; DMEs, Industry Insiders Wet Pants

It didn't have to be this way. When the Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently unveiled its plans to audit the Sleep Industry as part of its Work Plan for fiscal year 2009, it sent a shudder of fear through the sleep community, with doctors, sleep labs and DMEs scrambling to put their best foot forward. With an economic crisis afoot and President-elect Obama… Continue

Added by Mike on December 9, 2008 at 5:00pm — 11 Comments

New Nasal Device Seeks to Give CPAP a Run For Its Money

It's no secret that a lot of people have trouble adjusting to CPAP, or other positive pressure therapies, to treat their sleep apnea. The conventional estimate is that about 50% of those who are prescribed CPAP have trouble with it, get frustrated and give up. Although I believe the vast majority of these… Continue

Added by Mike on December 5, 2008 at 4:00pm — 4 Comments

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