airwaav:tongue retention device

forum user bluper mentioned this product in a discussion. was interested and thought i'd try it out. here's the price and what it looks like-
https://airwaav.com/products/airwaav?tw ... zcEALw_wcB

got it yesterday. it's a "boil and bite" device, apparently intended to keep the tongue forward during sleep so that your tongue doesn't slide down and block the airway. sounds good to me.

it needs to be fit to you individual mouth, hence the boil and bite part. also, once you have it fitted to your mouth, it needs to "cure" for 24 hrs before first use. so I did that yesterday and will sleep with it tonight, then report back.

the fitting itself went fine. set it in boiled water then cold then fit it. that went fine. i'm just hoping the fit is right for my occluded teeth and small mouth.

I've tried this-
https://www.quitsnoringsolution.com/pro ... nea-device

however there wasn't any way to modify it, no boil and bite. it fight horribly in my mouth causing a few nights of pain. I even tried cutting it down, but finally gave up on it. i've also tried a regular boil and bite mouthguard and had great success with it. however, my tongue soon had sore spots on it, similar to what I get if I overeat. so I gave that one up. but I'm struck by the idea and may go back to a regular mouthguard if this doesn't work. will have to see if I can find something kinder to my tongue!

I stress that i'm not looking for something to replace my CPAP therapy. instead, i'm for something to work with CPAP to give me better results.

will post tomorrow on how tonight went.

last night wasn't the best start for this device. but then, I probably said the same thing about CPAP when I first started.

the fit itself was fine, once I got it placed precisely. turned lights out at 11 pm and woke up at 1:30 am with a slight bit of pain at the front of my mouth. this wasn't unexpected. I have a slight underbite. over the years of therapy, this has slowly become a problem for me as the underside of my lower lip becomes sucked into my mouth causing the pain. I have a piece of plastic that acts as a barrier. I left it off last night to see if I could use the airwaav without it. nope. the device doesn't cover the gap.

so I slipped in the plastic and decided to carry on. while there was no pain, from that moment on, I just couldn't fall into a deep sleep. the instructions with the device say that the tongue will at first move around and this is normal until you get used to it. and yeah that certainly contributed.

but I also had aerophagia, which I don't think was atributtal to the device. just random as it's happened before. it's belching and I hate doing that while trying to sleep. also, my breathing seemed not at all natural. like it was forced. naturally I checked my ahi on the 1:30 awakening and it was at 0.0. I figured maybe if I reduced pressure that would help me breath more naturally. it did, to an extent. but I still couldn't get back to what I'd call real sleep.

finally I woke up with a final ahi of 3.8 which is within the normal parameters i'v grown to expect. also, had a slightly dry mouth.

will carry on tonight and report back tomorrow.

just btw, the purpose of this experiment is to try to lower my ahi to 2 consistently. this reduces brain fog that I feel in the morning if I get over 2. I'm not looking for better sleep as I know I have sleep maintenance insomnia. just want to wake up feeling better on what sleep I DO manage to get.

excelsior!

Yes, excelsior. My fingers are crossed that tonight will be a lot better.

last night saw improvements in that when I did have awakenings, they were in line with what I usually experience. that as, after four hours slept then woke up again three hours later.

inserting my plastic piece prevented pain from bottom of my lip pulling through the gap in my teeth. so no pain. and still a good fit. reset my lower pressure with no breathing problems.

turned up humidity and that helped the dry mouth, though I may have to go higher. ahi of 3.6 though that may be due to my turning my pressure back up.

all in all, not much progress. will keep everything as is and report back back in a few days.

so, things are definitely improving as i grow more accustomed to the device. an adjustment in humidity easily solved dry mouth issues. you might say "well, duh" but it seems my past history shows that whenever i fiddle with humidity, rain out occurs. so this is one of the things that have improved since i started wearing the device.

the other thing is my ahi has improved. went like this-

night before device, thursday-3.09

1st night of device friday-3.46
saturday-3.66
sunday-1.22
monday-2.12
last night-2.71

so i think i'm on my way to an ahi consistently 2.0 or under. to reiterate, it helps with any brain fog I have when waking up.

oh! and so far, my tongue remains unbothered by having the device in my mouth.

will try to remember to post again next week to see how this is settling in.

fingers crossed.

It seems to be working for you. You are using the purple one, right? I can't sleep without mine. Good luck.

Bluper wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 04, 2024 3:53 pm

It seems to be working for you. You are using the purple one, right? I can't sleep without mine. Good luck.

yup! that's the one. haven't decided if I should place my tongue above or below the little shelf. I'm sure i'll settle on on or the other.

Thank you for sharing your experience with this!

Are you using this to prevent mouth leaking or filling up with air from the tongue falling back and down? If so, does it seem to work for that?

May I ask if you could tell me more about the piece of plastic seal you mentioned?

Thank you.

KittyBunts wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 05, 2024 10:52 am

Thank you for sharing your experience with this!

Are you using this to prevent mouth leaking or filling up with air from the tongue falling back and down? If so, does it seem to work for that?

May I ask if you could tell me more about the piece of plastic seal you mentioned?

Thank you.

my intent is to keep my tongue from blocking the air passage. and it seems to be doing just that.

okay as regards the plastic; as I said, I have a slight underbite which I "shield" with a bit of zip lock food storage bag. I use it in it's flattened state and I cut out a size and just keep trying to fit it until I get it "just right". as a matter of fact, I just cut it down significantly after having it just right for years. the airwaav interfered with that plastic in its former size, so I cut down so that it lay right against my teeth.

for me, mouth leaks are a different story altogether. I use the jay aitchsee (best user name ever) method here-
viewtopic/p1089718/viewtopic.php?f=1&t= ... s#p1086296

hope that helps!

Thank you!

KittyBunts wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 05, 2024 1:20 pm

Thank you!

here's a few more days-
wed 0.0
Thu 0.0
Fri 1.25
sat 4.5
sun 1.0
mon 2.0
tue 1.4

most satisfactory, as Nero Wolfe would say. that outlier of 4.5 was a result of me acting like I was 17 by eating spicy foods and downing a couple of beers. I know better but i've got to do my part in denying any attempt to grow old gracefully.

my conclusion is that the airwaav is doing it's job and has brought my ahi down to 2 or under. I recommend it to anyone who has tried a lot of other things and still feels the need to improve. in conjunction with my CPAP, I feel that i've done the best that I can do.

I hope this can help others!