Treating my Sleep Apnea
This update is delayed by a month while I’ve been busy dealing with other things, such as recovering from nasal surgery. It’s mainly for people who love graphs because I couldn’t use my CPAP machine for three weeks after the surgery, so the pressure trend analysis is a bit useless but I’ll include it anyway for completeness.
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When I was 13 years old, I had orthodontic treatment to correct my crowded teeth which involved removing four otherwise healthy bicuspids and fitting metal braces which pulled my front teeth backwards to close the resulting gaps and straighten my remaining teeth. This routine process involving premolar extraction and retraction orthodontics (PER) contributed to me developing obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) by further reducing tongue space in my already undersized mouth with the result that my tongue is forced backwards into my airway during sleep.
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When I saw ENT Dr Larry Kalish at the beginning of 2020 he said I had a deviated septum and enlarged turbinates, recommending a septoplasty and turbinate reduction. I declined because I was considering Vivos and had heard many users report improved nasal breathing which I thought may make surgery unnecessary.
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This update has been delayed for a few reasons: My mum died in September 2021 and that’s been taking up a lot of my time and emotional energy. I had a mid-treatment CBCT scan and was concerned about the results, so I wanted to talk this over with my provider before posting about it. I also had nasal surgery to improve my daytime breathing and have been recovering from that.
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CPAP pressure remains pretty stable, and hasn’t changed much in the last 6 months. This isn’t particularly good news. My compliance remains excellent, but I think the facemask is giving me headaches so I’m going to take a break from it for a while.
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It’s been a full year since I started using my Vivos mRNA Appliance in the hope of permanently curing my severe sleep apnea. This month’s CPAP data showed only a very slight decline in my CPAP peak pressure, probably because despite my best efforts I haven’t actually been expanding the appliance at all this month!
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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.
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Emma Cooksey has been doing an amazing job raising awareness of all things related to sleep apnea on her Sleep Apnea Stories podcast. I highly recommend it if you haven’t already checked it out. This week I’m her guest talking about my journey from the hell of chronic fatigue into the wasteland of obstructive sleep apnea.
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Another month has gone by, so here’s another update. My health and fitness continue to improve, but the CPAP pressure trend has gone backwards this month and I noticed something weird about my expansion measurements.
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I’m a huge fan of Canadian psychologist Dr Jordan Peterson, who I discovered after stumbling across his psychology lectures on his YouTube channel. I particularly enjoyed his series of talks on The Psychological Significance of The Bible Stories, which helped put my childhood religious indoctrination into perspective for me.
But it was something he said in a recent interview that really got my attention.
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