Eleven Months Vivos mRNA Appliance Update

I’ve been using my Vivos mRNA Appliance for eleven months now, so in theory I’m nearly half-way through my treatment… although I did notice treatments as long as 35 months in Vivos’s most recent real-world data submission to the FDA, so perhaps I’m only a third of the way there. Nevertheless, it’s all good news this month: my AHI continues to drop, as does my CPAP pressure trend, I’m exercising more, and my health continues to improve.

The biggest change this month has been that I’ve started doing some deliberate cardio exercise again, taking my skipping rope down to the beach each day weather permits and doing some skips. I started at 250 and ramped up adding 50 a day over a week to 500, in groups of 100. I take it at moderate speed and do a little double jump in between each skip, which really works out my calf muscles. Aside from its general health benefits, cardio exercise releases human growth hormone when sustained for at least 10 minutes, which I believe will help the DNA Appliance do its job.

After exercise I cool off with some cold-water therapy via a dip in the ocean. It’s the first day of spring here and taking winter swims hasn’t always been something that has appealed to me. However, I’m aware proponents like Wim Hof advocate it for health benefits, and the shock of the cold water prompts a release of cortisol which is likely to help my frozen shoulder recover. I was a little reluctant to try this given that exercising in the cold inhibits the release of human growth hormone, but I can’t really swim anyway given my shoulder still has restricted mobility so I rely on the skipping for exercise while relatively warm. I didn’t find any research showing that jumping in cold water after warm exercise negated the growth hormone effect of the exercise. So far after a week of this the results seem promising as my shoulders are a little more mobile and less painful. I’m also getting used to the initial shock of the cold which makes me feel like the Ice Man himself!

I also do 30 bicep curls, lat pull-downs, squats, push-ups and standing rows a day during the week, plus most days about an hour each of singing, drums and keyboard practice.

I get really tired in the evenings and sometimes to go to bed between 8 and 9 PM, especially if I haven’t slept particularly well the night before. I don’t go out at night; but I rarely go out at all given Sydney is in COVID lockdown and all my university lectures are online as a result anyway.

My appliance usage remains excellent at an average of 16.38 hours/day, with the facemask about 3 hours/day this month. I haven’t been sleeping with the facemask but I’m going to start again now my health has improved, and the warmer weather should make it more practical. Wearing it during the day is a pain in the ass and sleeping with it is the obvious way to clock up serious hours using it.

I realised last month that my meticulous records of screw turns had been compromised because the screws wind themselves backwards over time, so the calculations in my spreadsheet don’t match the actual expansion of the appliance. To counter this, I’ve been diligently checking and correcting the screw positions every morning and will only report actual expansion measurements from the appliance from now on; although the forward adjustment on the upper appliance is difficult to measure due to the Y shape so an estimate for it will have to do.

In total so far, I’ve expanded the lower appliance 5.5 mm sideways, the upper appliance 6 mm sideways and I estimate 5 mm forward.

This month’s CPAP pressure trend analysis is encouraging as it shows a slight downward trend:

The only bummer is that the median pressure was actually lower to begin with in the first month of my Vivos mRNA Appliance treatment, so this month’s improvement still isn’t quite enough to reverse the overall upwards trend in pressure, but it’s getting there. The blue line indicating the Median Pressure trend is almost horizontal now:

My AHI continues to decline this month due to an ongoing reduction in central events, which could be due to:

• Acclimatising to CPAP therapy (which I’ve been on since December 2019)
• The breathing exercises Roger Price taught me
• Better physical health
• More exercise
• Psychologically feeling less anxious and more positive generally

This continues the dramatic drop in the overall AHI trend:

I still wouldn’t say I wake up feeling truly refreshed after a nightly threesome with Vivos and Resmed; they’re not really my ideal choice of bed partners. I still wake up with a mild tension headache every day and remain hopeful that in time I’ll be able to ditch CPAP, then the DNA Appliance, and finally get a really good night’s sleep.