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Does CPAP Weaken Tongue?
I'll preface all this by saying SleepGuide.com is probably the only place on the internet where you can have an intelligent discussion about anything that might cast CPAP in a negative light, given the financial interests of the other venues out there for education and support (read: people who want to sell you CPAP). But I went to my doctor the other day and we got into a debate about whether if my next sleep study shows that my weight loss has reduced my AHI to acceptable levels, whether I should get off CPAP. I argued against it, since my perception is that everyone has obstructed breathing at some point when they sleep and that positive airway pressure can only help keep the body oxygenated and healthy, even if the level of obstruction does not rise to the clinically approved definition of an apnea or hypopnea event. The doctor disagreed, saying that reliance on CPAP reduces muscle tone in the tongue and that it can actually make you worse off. He likened it to wearing a cast on your foot that keeps the foot immobilized -- sure that is needed at times, but when you don't use those muscles, you lose them.
What do you all think?
Views: 2305
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Banyon on
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Reply by Somnonaut
Maybe, but your 7th grade science teacher would hang his head in shame. You are not seeing the true extent of CPAP's usage and the MILLIONS of people it has helped. All you like to do is belabor the miniscule number that have issue with it. Statistics is not your strong point. Fear mongering is.
Of course CPAP might not be perfect for everyone. No therapy is perfect. But, when comparing CPAP to any other therapy for OSA, it is immediate, it is temporary, it is effective, and it has very little down side, and nothing can compare with it. There is not much else a therapy can ask, besides be everything for everyone. Which of course it is not. It is a VERY useful and first line tool to treat this EPIDEMIC. Do the companies make money on it, sure they do. That is why we can get a little, silent box on our night tables that measures about 6-8 inches by 8-10 inches and provides night to night relief. It should be the first line of therapy for its immediacy if nothing else.
Like!
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Permalink Reply by Somnonaut on
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Not sure who posted the comment from the ASAA site, but it said:
"The question you and everyone else should be asking is, why isn't there a full court press going on to get people diagnosed and treated early enough in life that they avoid all the expensive comorbidities?? One possible answer is that the drug companies don't want them in treatment until they come up with the Holy Grail of at least a semi-effective pharmaceutical treatment. But the minute they do, watch the commercials and public health messages proliferate.
In the meantime, hope that you don't lose too many relatives to OSA, because if you've got this issue, dollars to donuts, a lot of them do as well, and since most people with this condition remain undiagnosed, they have no idea. Try to get them into treatment, and I hope you have more success with that endeavor than I have had.
OSA is a topic in desperate need of a public health education program at the national level."
To make one thing perfectly clear. The reason that there is no push to get people diagnosed earlier is private healthcare insurance (Priv). Priv has the goal of maximizing profits. Their clients are employers who purchase insurance plans for their workers who stay with the employer for, on average now, 18 -24 months. Priv has no interest in the long term healthcare of these individuals. Only the short term expenditure of their dollars.
Compare this to the longterm interests that Medicare has, being that they are responsible to pay for the patient if they were to go into the ICU, so keeping them healthy and out of the hospital is of major interest to them.
See the difference?
Privat Healthcare insurance once again shows that it is antithetical to our health and well being, for the sole purpose of their bottom line. And the government program is the one with the true long term goals and interests of worrying about our overall health.
We need single payor healthcare, that is how you get young people diagnosed for OSA EARLY.
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Permalink Reply by Jay Polatnick on
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I don't want to go overboard with this and it's likely another thread, entirely.
A previous poster made the cogent point that Drug companies have no interest in OSA because they cannot market a pharmaceutical to treat the disease/malady.
As for Government health insurance doing a better job than Private insurance, consider the $60 Billion in fraud in Medicare http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/03/medicare-fraud-is-incre...
As I mentioned, this should be an entirely different thread. Increased public awareness would be a good start. I think that's one of the goals of this blog.
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Permalink Reply by ZolliStar on
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Another point, Somnonaut, is the fact that people with zero problems/issues using their CPAPs and masks have no reason to spend time on forums like SleepGuide and others. Thus, as you say, there are millions sleeping reasonably to very well night after night serenely unaware of all the swirling discussions surrounding CPAP therapy.
Also, I'm grateful that there is a profit incentive for devising better machines, masks, etc., etc. That's why we keep getting...better machines, masks, etc., etc.And at constantly lower prices, too.
I recall that my first computer, which didn't connect with the Internet, etc., etc. cost four-figures and had a huge, huge...64K of memory! That was some 25 years ago and 'puters have done only one thing in the intervening years: gotten better, faster -- and dropped in price. Profit incentive, competition, etc., etc. gave us all these choices.
Somnonaut said:Maybe, but your 7th grade science teacher would hang his head in shame. You are not seeing the true extent of CPAP's usage and the MILLIONS of people it has helped. All you like to do is belabor the miniscule number that have issue with it. Statistics is not your strong point. Fear mongering is.
Of course CPAP might not be perfect for everyone. No therapy is perfect. But, when comparing CPAP to any other therapy for OSA, it is immediate, it is temporary, it is effective, and it has very little down side, and nothing can compare with it. There is not much else a therapy can ask, besides be everything for everyone. Which of course it is not. It is a VERY useful and first line tool to treat this EPIDEMIC. Do the companies make money on it, sure they do. That is why we can get a little, silent box on our night tables that measures about 6-8 inches by 8-10 inches and provides night to night relief. It should be the first line of therapy for its immediacy if nothing else.
[You should have seen the first models of CPAP. They were the size of a vacuum cleaner..in fact they used a vaccum cleaner motor originally.]
Jay Polatnick said:My point is to stimulate other solutions (beyond or including CPAP) to this very troubling condition. I just don't see CPAP as earning 'The Gold Standard' title for what is a multi-faceted physical (sometimes neurological) ailment. I reference some of Dr. Steven Park's work for one in regards to malocclusion and underdeveloped airway structures as a probably cause. My 8th grade English teacher would be proud.
Banyon said:Banyon,
So President Reagan was really an apneac throughout his life without knowing it ?
No other contributing factor may have lead to his development of Alzheimers ? Sounds very presumptious on your part.
'National Health disaster' ? It's absolutely serious, but sounds like you're asking for gov't intervention. Of course, the latter is a whole entire new thread.
Possible U.N. intervention ? A G8 summit in Brussels or Davos ?
Jay, I think anyone with who reads on an eighth-grade level or higher can easily read what I wrote and see that you have misrepresented it. I clearly did not say that OSA is the single cause of dementia. Go back and read my post if you care to. Your comment about Reagan is only silly drama.
Also the use of the word 'national' does not constitute a call for government action. You have made another misrepresention. It might be very puzzling to a rational person why you would make such a comment in contributing to a rational discussion.
You have accused another SleepGuide member of engaging in something "borderering on fear-mongering". How would you characterize the silly drama in your last two posts?
Why are you behaving like this? I don't get the point.
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Jay,
FRAUD is made by persons defrauding the government. Do you not think there is fraud in private health insurers? Of course there is. They just do not report it in the newspaper. Maybe if greed wasn't so rampant in this capitalistic system, with the push to deregulate everything and we would be better off silliness. Yes, go after the fraudsters more fervently, but it does not mean the program is not the most efficient healthcare provisioning program ever designed and enacted by humans. Overhead = 2%. No other program can match it. And catching the fraudsters will only drive that overhead number lower making it show that it is MORE efficient. So, you go baby, catch those criminals.
This also shows that privatization is not a good thing.
Good try though. ;)
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Permalink Reply by RockRpsgt on
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Not sure where you are going with this Jay. How is the gov't responsible for this type of criminal activity?
Jay Polatnick said:I don't want to go overboard with this and it's likely another thread, entirely.
A previous poster made the cogent point that Drug companies have no interest in OSA because they cannot market a pharmaceutical to treat the disease/malady.
As for Government health insurance doing a better job than Private insurance, consider the $60 Billion in fraud in Medicare http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/03/medicare-fraud-is-incre...
As I mentioned, this should be an entirely different thread. Increased public awareness would be a good start. I think that's one of the goals of this blog.
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Well, I barely even tried nor got going. Where's the motivation to hold fraud down by the gov't ? The answer is little to none because the primary motivation is to buy voting blocks by making promises that cannot be kept. Your metaphor 'capitalism = greed / gov't run = efficient' doesn't pan out. Try spending some time in Greece and Spain. The Buffalo teachers union has a terrific gov't subsidized healthcare program. Here it is in action....'It estimates the current annual cost at $5.2 million, down from $9 million in cosmetic surgery in 2009.'
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/why-does-buffal...
Somnonaut said:Jay,
FRAUD is made by persons defrauding the government. Do you not think there is fraud in private health insurers? Of course there is. They just do not report it in the newspaper. Maybe if greed wasn't so rampant in this capitalistic system, with the push to deregulate everything and we would be better off silliness. Yes, go after the fraudsters more fervently, but it does not mean the program is not the most efficient healthcare provisioning program ever designed and enacted by humans. Overhead = 2%. No other program can match it. And catching the fraudsters will only drive that overhead number lower making it show that it is MORE efficient. So, you go baby, catch those criminals.
This also shows that privatization is not a good thing.
Good try though. ;)
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This has been a great discussion by all. I think that we may have got a little caught up with the tongue thing(Crazy Talk). I could be wrong but I don't think it was the true purpose of the post.
The question here would be at what point is it safe to come off of PAP treatment? At what point should we consider our AHI readings or sleep to be healthy without treatment? Does it need to be a zero reading? Is an AHI of 1-4 acceptable? Under the current guidelines both would be sufficient to come of off treatment. Most of us would jump at this kind of opportunity. Without PAP how long would we last before needing it again?
At what point did your AHI go from zero to whatever it was when you were diagnosed? Why? What could an AHI of 1 do if left untreated?
MIke,congrats on the weight loss and healthy living. That kind of discipline is respectable tosay the least. If I were you I would have the study. I wouldn't use my PAP for 2 days prior to the event. At least see where you stand. You own your machine. The doc can't take it away. I have only heard of one pt(Henning) close to your size coming off of PAP. That was with quite a bit of surgery. I am curious to know If it can be done with weight loss and healthy living. Might give some hope to alot of people.
@Claude, Im glad you're here you crazy SOB!
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That has nothing to do with medicare Jay. Sounds to me like the teachers had a better negotiator than the schools.
Jay Polatnick said:Well, I barely even tried nor got going. Where's the motivation to hold fraud down by the gov't ? The answer is little to none because the primary motivation is to buy voting blocks by making promises that cannot be kept. Your metaphor 'capitalism = greed / gov't run = efficient' doesn't pan out. Try spending some time in Greece and Spain. The Buffalo teachers union has a terrific gov't subsidized healthcare program. Here it is in action....'It estimates the current annual cost at $5.2 million, down from $9 million in cosmetic surgery in 2009.'
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/why-does-buffal...
Somnonaut said:Jay,
FRAUD is made by persons defrauding the government. Do you not think there is fraud in private health insurers? Of course there is. They just do not report it in the newspaper. Maybe if greed wasn't so rampant in this capitalistic system, with the push to deregulate everything and we would be better off silliness. Yes, go after the fraudsters more fervently, but it does not mean the program is not the most efficient healthcare provisioning program ever designed and enacted by humans. Overhead = 2%. No other program can match it. And catching the fraudsters will only drive that overhead number lower making it show that it is MORE efficient. So, you go baby, catch those criminals.
This also shows that privatization is not a good thing.
Good try though. ;)
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Those must be some pretty good-looking teachers! $9 million could pay for 100 more less attractive teachers, instead.
RockRpsgt said:That has nothing to do with medicare Jay. Sounds to me like the teachers had a better negotiator than the schools.
Jay Polatnick said:Well, I barely even tried nor got going. Where's the motivation to hold fraud down by the gov't ? The answer is little to none because the primary motivation is to buy voting blocks by making promises that cannot be kept. Your metaphor 'capitalism = greed / gov't run = efficient' doesn't pan out. Try spending some time in Greece and Spain. The Buffalo teachers union has a terrific gov't subsidized healthcare program. Here it is in action....'It estimates the current annual cost at $5.2 million, down from $9 million in cosmetic surgery in 2009.'
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/why-does-buffal...
Somnonaut said:Jay,
FRAUD is made by persons defrauding the government. Do you not think there is fraud in private health insurers? Of course there is. They just do not report it in the newspaper. Maybe if greed wasn't so rampant in this capitalistic system, with the push to deregulate everything and we would be better off silliness. Yes, go after the fraudsters more fervently, but it does not mean the program is not the most efficient healthcare provisioning program ever designed and enacted by humans. Overhead = 2%. No other program can match it. And catching the fraudsters will only drive that overhead number lower making it show that it is MORE efficient. So, you go baby, catch those criminals.
This also shows that privatization is not a good thing.
Good try though. ;)
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Oh and things such as the $700 toilet seat in the Defense Dept. expenditures was because of:
1) Greed of the company making the object
2) Loss of oversight of the DOD from overzealous right wing capitalistic whacknobs
3) Politicians who made promises for things they could not provide. (ala: bridges to nowhere for a small group of people (8900) that did not like to wait for the ferry service.)
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/10/the-bridge-to-nowh...
Jay Polatnick said:Well, I barely even tried nor got going. Where's the motivation to hold fraud down by the gov't ? The answer is little to none because the primary motivation is to buy voting blocks by making promises that cannot be kept. Your metaphor 'capitalism = greed / gov't run = efficient' doesn't pan out. Try spending some time in Greece and Spain. The Buffalo teachers union has a terrific gov't subsidized healthcare program. Here it is in action....'It estimates the current annual cost at $5.2 million, down from $9 million in cosmetic surgery in 2009.'
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/why-does-buffal...
Somnonaut said:Jay,
FRAUD is made by persons defrauding the government. Do you not think there is fraud in private health insurers? Of course there is. They just do not report it in the newspaper. Maybe if greed wasn't so rampant in this capitalistic system, with the push to deregulate everything and we would be better off silliness. Yes, go after the fraudsters more fervently, but it does not mean the program is not the most efficient healthcare provisioning program ever designed and enacted by humans. Overhead = 2%. No other program can match it. And catching the fraudsters will only drive that overhead number lower making it show that it is MORE efficient. So, you go baby, catch those criminals.
This also shows that privatization is not a good thing.
Good try though. ;)
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