New ways to conquer sleep apnea compete for place in bedroom
It’s been two decades since doctors fully recognized that breathing that stops and starts during sleep is tied to a host of health issues, even early death, but there still isn’t a treatment that most people find easy to use. Airway pressure masks, the most common remedy, have improved in design, getting smaller and quieter, but patients still complain about sore nostrils, dry mouths and claustrophobia. Now, new ways of conquering sleep apnea, and the explosive snoring that comes with it, are vying for a place in the bedrooms of millions of people craving a good night’s sleep. Products range from a $350 restraint meant to discourage back sleeping to a $24,000 surgical implant that pushes the tongue forward with each breath. Mouthpieces, fitted by dentists, work for some people but have their own problems, including jaw pain. Some patients try surgery, but it often doesn’t work. Doctors recommend weight loss, but diet and exercise can be challenging for people who aren’t sleeping well. Researchers are now focused on how to get people to use a mask more faithfully and predicting who is likely to abandon it and could start instead with a dental device. For specialists, the first-choice, most-studied remedy remains continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP - a motorized device that pumps air through a mask to open a sleeper’s airway. About 5 million Americans have tried CPAP, but up to a third gave up during the first several years because of discomfort and inconvenience. “It’s the bane of my existence as a sleep doctor,” said Dr. James Rowley of Wayne State University in Detroit. “A lot of what sleep doctors do in the first few months after diagnosis is help people be able to use their CPAP.”