Hit and Miss OSA Devices (Humor)

Over the course of history man has always searched for cures to the common snore. From the semi-comatose minds of the sleep deprived many an idea has sprung to help quell the nightly thunder and restore peace to the bedroom. Everyone knows of CPAP which has been widely accepted by the Medical profession, but what bits of genius born from sleepless delirium have been lost over the course of time? My extensive research has uncovered the following sure fire rumble suppressors:

The Stand-O-Lounger – Invented in the fifties the elaborate system of harnesses, pulleys and counterweights allowed a person to sleep standing up with the same comfort as lying in their beds. According to many accounts, this ceiling suspension apparatus gave you the feeling of truly sleeping on air. With upright sleeping, airways were always clear and snoring never occurred. There are various Urban Legends surrounding this device. According to one story one many adjusted his incorrectly and when his chin strapped slipped he either lost his manhood or snapped his neck, depending on which version you hear. The more popular belief is that mattress industry bought the patent rights and it is buried in the Patent Office Archives along with the pill that turns water into gasoline.

The Hose of Silence (Would you believe you stick this in your mouth?)– More of a marketing campaign than an actual new product. Hoping to capitalize on the popularity of the hit show Get Smart, someone came up with this way to sell surplus intubation tubes from a defunct medical supply manufacturer. Their target demographic was women married to snorers. They were able to secure Don Adams as their celebrity endorser but with the sales slogan “Husband snores keeping you all worn out? Stick Don’s hose in his mouth”, this is one campaign that didn’t get two feet off the launch pad.

The Pacifier Pillow – The idea was simple in concept and very effective. Why not build binkys into the edges of a pillow? Stop that snoring by using of these handy suckers. It isn’t quite clear what took this one off the market. Known side effects were the penchant to wear diapers and needing to be burped after every meal. The percentage of occurrence was no different from those experienced by their test group who used regular pillows. Maybe it was because their test group came from Las Vegas, but I personally think it was the dreaded Drool-Out that killed this product.

Whack-A-Snore – The first medically approved therapeutic spousal abuse. Since the wives were awake from the snoring anyway, why not use them for behavior modification. This FDA approved, by prescription only device, consisted of a foam mallet that your bed partner would administer every time you snored. While it didn’t prove very effective to stop snoring, the spouses felt so much better. The biggest problem was they didn’t know when to stop, every time their husband opened their mouths they would whack them. Right before the introduction of the Auto-Whacker the FDA re-called this product. Seems too many people where using non-prescribed mallets that they bought at local hardware stores.

Thank you Mike. I'll start the weekend smiling!

Chris

Mike, that so funny. I use the wack-o-snore.
Now with Automatic CPAP , I have a white noise to drown him out. He 's not loud, just irritating. I was loud. He use to tell me I snored like a cow.