Jude92 wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2024 1:02 pm
Thanks for your response vandownbytheriver.
Thanks for the info on MAD. One potential issue with this for me is that I currently wear teeth aligners and will be on a nightly retainer soon. I'm not sure if this would prevent me from being able to use such a device?
Up to your dentist. Normally they defer to sleep dentists who specialize in MADs. Certainly complicates things.
Also another thing to note, I have quite a small throat (it takes me longer than most to eat). Would a small throat/airway be a cause of sleep apnea, and if so are there any common remedies for this? Would a MAD device help with this?
The MAD moves the hyoid bone and the base of the tongue forward. If this is constricted then yes. Again, your situation complicates things. You should see an ENT, they can usually just take a look and make an educated guess... mine said 'tongue'. When I use the MAD I can sleep supine no issues... if I don't use it I can feel it catch sometimes when supine. The big bi-level pressures do help, you really need good sea legs to tolerate 20cm though.
Regarding sleep position, I always sleep on my side (I've tried both sides and there isn't much difference between them on their impact on aerophagia or AHI) but last night I tried sleeping on my back for the latter part of my sleep. My aerophagia wasn't too bad today, but AHI score increased to 12.8 with a big increase on CA Apneas. Not sure if that was the cause, but interesting to note. Here's the graph -
https://sleephq.com/public/b6e3e6c5-a0b ... 5055668c6f
Flex is limited at 4cm... as the pressure climbs you will get more flex, until at 7cm the Flex 3cm is fully active. Flex can cause CO2 stripping... this causes cycles of CA. I'm wondering how you do with less Flex... have you tried it?
