RF Somnoplasty. Good bad or indifferent?

franklydave · Post by **franklydave** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 1:04 am

Hi
I'm curious to hear people's experiences with RF somnoplasty.
I've had somnoplasty three times to my tongue, and soft palate, and twice to my turbinates. My tongue is now apprciabley shorter, but I'm still a little swollen from the last procedure so I can't yet tell if ther'e much improvement.

The doctor knocks me when he does the prcedure so he is quite agressive in the number of sites he does at one time. ( I think 10 )
My turbinates worked a treat. I can use a cpap and not block up after 30 minutes.
I'd love to be able to say goodbye to my machine forever though.
Good or bad or indifferent, I'd love to hear about peoples somnoplasty experiences.
Dave

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): CPAP

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): CPAP

Snoredog · Post by **Snoredog** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 2:04 am

My ENT uses it a lot, but he didn't have much faith in it helping with my OSA condition, now that I've gained a bit of knowledge on it, I think he was right.

Most OSA is caused by the tongue falling into the back of the throat. That is why the UPPP surgery isn't very successful, it just makes a bigger hole at the back of the throat for your tongue to land into.

Now if you can keep your tongue from doing that, you'd have it made. I bet if you told your ENT that you read where OSA is caused by the tongue falling into the back of the throat that you might just hear "....well we are all done with these somnoplasty treatments, let's wait 6 months to see how those areas scar up and shrink.."

franklydave · Post by **franklydave** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 1:27 pm

Thanks Snoredog. If ONLY there was an easy , comfortable solution.

Snoredog · Post by **Snoredog** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 1:39 pm

franklydave wrote:Thanks Snoredog. If ONLY there was an easy , comfortable solution.

I'm assuming most of the somnoplasty was done at the base of the tongue?

Do you think it has helped you any?

If you were using say a autopap that was recording before and after the procedure you might be able to tell, otherwise I think it would be pretty hard to see the difference.

My daughter (who's a dentist) wraps gauze around the end of my tongue when she yanks it out to examine the base of my tongue, I assume you have to do the same to see what was done.

franklydave · Post by **franklydave** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 12:03 am

Base of tongue and soft palate are the areas that have been treated in the mouth. I haven't seen the back of my tongue, (I'll go and try the gauze thing) but my tongue is about 1 inch shorter when i stick it out.
I just got the auto cpap, so I'll be able to measure any improvement( if any)now.