@jereshoph--I've been amazed reading what the experienced & knowledgeable people on this forum have been able to help others achieve in obtaining successful CPAP therapy thru analyzing the CPAP data, adjusting settings and adding cervical collars, mouth tape & more. What you're bringing up might just be another tool for people to try and I wanted to offer some support for your idea.
While we typically think of exercise as building muscle, these oropharyngeal exercises might be more about increasing muscle
tone. Muscle tone is described as 'the tension in the relaxed muscle'--and higher tone would help keep muscles in place when asleep (relaxed). I have one reference on this below where improvement with exercises was seen in mild to moderate cases of sleep apnea--and while this small group did not see any significant change in body weight--their neck circumferences got smaller indicating greater muscle tone, I believe. Other key measurements improved as well:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26993338/ "Oropharyngeal exercises in the treatment of obstructive sleep apnoea: our experience"
Results: Body mass index (25.6 ± 3.1) did not change significantly at the end of the study period. There was significant reduction in the neck circumference (38.4 ± 1.3 to 37.8 ± 1.6) at the end of the study. Significant improvement was seen in symptoms of daytime sleepiness, witnessed apnoea, and snoring intensity. Significant improvement was also seen in sleep indices like minimum oxygen saturation, time duration of Sao2 < 90 %, sleep efficiency, arousal index, and total sleep time N3 stage of sleep at the end of study. Conclusion: Graded oropharyngeal exercise therapy increases the compliance and also reduces the severity of mild to moderate OSAS.
Whether the exercises will be a significant benefit to you or others might depend on the level of OSA you have and how consistently the exercises are performed. But it doesn't cost anything to try it....
