UARS and CPAP trial

My sleep doctor thinks I may have UARS - Upper Airway Restrictive Syndrome. The 3 sleep studies I have had did not show any evidence of sleep apnea, although both my father and his father have/had severe cases. My doctor has given me a CPAP to try for 4 weeks. I am in my second week of the trial and I have not been able to sleep with the CPAP yet. I have always breathed through my mouth while I sleep and I can't figure out how to breathe through my nose while sleep. As soon as I start to fall asleep, the air being pushed in my nose feels like it is pushing my mouth open and I can't breathe. The respiratory therapist says my CPAP is set on the lowest setting it can go.

Is there anyone out there who has UARS and has successfully been treated with a CPAP? I'm wondering if it is worth it to continue with this trial, or see if my doctor has any other ideas for treatment.

Call your professionals (used loosely) and tell them you need a full face mask. Many people mouthbreathe or mouthleak and with a nasal mask the pressure escapes and the CPAP therapy may be worthless.

A full face mask covers the nose and mouth allowing you to mouthbreathe/leak and still maintain the therpeutic pressure.

(Thanks for the correction Gumby)

Gumby wrote:What Rooster meant was "A full face mask covers the nose and mouth...."

It does take some time and focus to break old habits.
You can try keeping your tongue planted to the roof of your mouth.
It does take some effort.

Exactly what are your pressure settings?

fwiw - my sleep doc says anyone who has sleep apnea had UARS.

Thank you for the info. I will try to get a full face mask. As far as the settings go, it starts at 4.0 and has gotten as high as 7.7. I've noticed that once it gets over 6.0, I have trouble keeping my mouth closed and exhaling through my nose. Since this is a trial, I haven't been given any software to view the results.

Gumby - did your doctor mean that sleep apnea starts out as UARS? I presume that means what I have will get worse as I get older. That's something to look forward to!!

Two links for you to read. The second link discusses takaing a Claratin before bed.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Upper-Airway- ... id=1680650

http://www.uarsrelief.com/sales.html

I have been a mouth breather all my life at night. I tried taping, full face masks, and every chin strap on the market. I also have UARS and have been on cpap therapy since 2006.

But what finally stopped me from mouth breathing all together is

PAPCap™ PLUS - a headgear and chin strap all in one.

http://www.pur-sleep.com/products/prodD ... rch=&page=

Best purchase I've ever made for my cpap therapy.

julee88 wrote:My sleep doctor thinks I may have UARS - Upper Airway Restrictive Syndrome. The 3 sleep studies I have had did not show any evidence of sleep apnea, although both my father and his father have/had severe cases. My doctor has given me a CPAP to try for 4 weeks. I am in my second week of the trial and I have not been able to sleep with the CPAP yet. I have always breathed through my mouth while I sleep and I can't figure out how to breathe through my nose while sleep. As soon as I start to fall asleep, the air being pushed in my nose feels like it is pushing my mouth open and I can't breathe. The respiratory therapist says my CPAP is set on the lowest setting it can go.

Is there anyone out there who has UARS and has successfully been treated with a CPAP? I'm wondering if it is worth it to continue with this trial, or see if my doctor has any other ideas for treatment.

I was just doing a search for UARS on this board and found this post. Are you still around, Julee? I was wondering if there was anyone like me out there who had no formal sleep disordered breathing diagnosis but was given CPAP as an empiric trial. I would like to talk to you, or anyone else, who meets this criteria. Maybe I'll try to start a thread.... I've just been lazy about typing out my story...

julee88 wrote:My sleep doctor thinks I may have UARS - Upper Airway Restrictive Syndrome. The 3 sleep studies I have had did not show any evidence of sleep apnea, although both my father and his father have/had severe cases. My doctor has given me a CPAP to try for 4 weeks. I am in my second week of the trial and I have not been able to sleep with the CPAP yet. I have always breathed through my mouth while I sleep and I can't figure out how to breathe through my nose while sleep. As soon as I start to fall asleep, the air being pushed in my nose feels like it is pushing my mouth open and I can't breathe. The respiratory therapist says my CPAP is set on the lowest setting it can go.

Is there anyone out there who has UARS and has successfully been treated with a CPAP? I'm wondering if it is worth it to continue with this trial, or see if my doctor has any other ideas for treatment.

I am another who uses a F/F mask due to regular constriction in the nasal passages & sinus.
I tried using nasal pillows but just couldn't handle the difficulty with the airflow.

I use a quattro.

Good luck - DSM

DSM, do you have a diagnosis of sleep disordered breathing (of any sort), or are/were you on CPAP for a trial to see if you did?

dsm wrote:I am another who uses a F/F mask due to regular constriction in the nasal passages & sinus.
I tried using nasal pillows but just couldn't handle the difficulty with the airflow.

I use a quattro.

Good luck - DSM

SleepingUgly,

I’ve had 3 sleep studies done in the past 2 years. The first two basically showed nothing and these were done at accredited sleep centers. The 3rd one was done at Stanford – it showed an AHI of 14 and many, many flow limitations. I was so shocked!! Even though my AHI is low the flow limitations disrupt my sleep which is why I feel so crappy. After my first study, I convinced the sleep lab tech to loan me the cpap machine as an empirical test – I felt MUCH better after using it so I suspected I have a sleep breathing disorder. After 2 oral appliances and a year’s trial of cpap I’m scheduled to have mma surgery in January. I never dreamed that it would go this far.

Have you read Dr. Steven Park’s post on other boards such as doctorstevenpark, medhelp, sleepguide, apneasupport – he is an NY ENT who specializes in UARS. I also recommend his book “Sleep, Interrupted” which you can buy off his website. Also, have you read the research papers by Dr. Christian Guilleminault on UARs? (he discovered this disorder). Feel free to e-mail me if you would like some reading material on UARS. I have researched this problem for YEARS and feel somewhat consumed by it. I hope the mma surgery will cure it for good!!!!

Phoebe,

I've thought about going to Stanford for a sleep study. In your sleep study at Stanford, did they score RERAs? Are you in the Stanford area or do you have to get outside your insurance network to get the sleep study done there?

I'm trying to use a CPAP as an empiric test of whether I have SDB, but I am having trouble with the masks and the many disturbances to my sleep (I'm a light sleeper). Did you take to the masks/CPAP immediately?

How did you discover WHERE you are obstructing, and that Mandibular Advancement surgery is the type of surgery you should have? Is someone in Palo Alto doing your surgery?

So many questions...

Thanks!

phoebe368 wrote:SleepingUgly,

I’ve had 3 sleep studies done in the past 2 years. The first two basically showed nothing and these were done at accredited sleep centers. The 3rd one was done at Stanford – it showed an AHI of 14 and many, many flow limitations. I was so shocked!! Even though my AHI is low the flow limitations disrupt my sleep which is why I feel so crappy. After my first study, I convinced the sleep lab tech to loan me the cpap machine as an empirical test – I felt MUCH better after using it so I suspected I have a sleep breathing disorder. After 2 oral appliances and a year’s trial of cpap I’m scheduled to have mma surgery in January. I never dreamed that it would go this far.

Have you read Dr. Steven Park’s post on other boards such as doctorstevenpark, medhelp, sleepguide, apneasupport – he is an NY ENT who specializes in UARS. I also recommend his book “Sleep, Interrupted” which you can buy off his website. Also, have you read the research papers by Dr. Christian Guilleminault on UARs? (he discovered this disorder). Feel free to e-mail me if you would like some reading material on UARS. I have researched this problem for YEARS and feel somewhat consumed by it. I hope the mma surgery will cure it for good!!!!