CPAPtalk.com

tonycog wrote: . . . go watch X-Files. Or stop . . .

The Truth Is In Here.

Obviously, one of Santa's trolls...

Ok so where is my cheque? Do we get paid by the word?

Just one point - I am pretty well guaranteed to wake up in the morning when using cpap (baring other issues) I am not guaranteed to wake up from surgery, nor am I guaranteed to be "cured" or not have other issues. Cpap is the least invasive with the least side effects treatment I have ever experienced. Plus even in places where medicine is a not-for-profit practice surgery is not pushed as a "cure-all".

aviator202 wrote: ........ Truthfully, I refuse to believe that the Pillar Procedure, LAUP, UPX3, et al....are complete failures and frauds...YET there are NO success stories on this board that I can detect AT ALL....

....

There are two surgeries that are cures for obstructive sleep apnea, yet you do not mention either one of them.

One of these surgeries is an excellent cure and the other is a cure with some inconvenient maintenance issues. Have you researched either one of them?

I am very grateful for this forum! My doctor and I discussed surgery - but I have so many obstructions in my nose and throat (not to mention jaw position) that it would require a major overhaul (short of a tracheostomy - which has many issues itself) and likely not be as effective as CPAP therapy. Therefore, I started CPAP therapy. Since starting CPAP, I have visited this forum daily and it has provided me with much needed education as well as humor, but also the main thing I think this board is for - support! Coming here criticizing this groups efforts is like going to a Weight Watchers meeting and shouting "What are you doing here - don't you know there is a surgery out there that will fix you?"! We are here for support and that is what we get - except when people come here with other agendas.

Wow! Nice post!

yasulh wrote:I am very grateful for this forum! My doctor and I discussed surgery - but I have so many obstructions in my nose and throat (not to mention jaw position) that it would require a major overhaul (short of a tracheostomy - which has many issues itself) and likely not be as effective as CPAP therapy. Therefore, I started CPAP therapy. Since starting CPAP, I have visited this forum daily and it has provided me with much needed education as well as humor, but also the main thing I think this board is for - support! Coming here criticizing this groups efforts is like going to a Weight Watchers meeting and shouting "What are you doing here - don't you know there is a surgery out there that will fix you?"! We are here for support and that is what we get - except when people come here with other agendas.

aviator202 wrote:I have read many, many posts on this board...And I have come to a conclusion....

Obviously not enough......and they were the WRONG conclusions

My opinion, after long and careful study of the posts, is that this board is bought and paid for by the CPAP manufacturers/distributors...

Where's the advertising? (to and by the manufacturers) Actually, the manufacturers would like to see the online sellers go away so the brick & mortar (local and big chains) could control all of the business.

Here is why I say that.... There is a complete lack of acknowledgement that ANYONE benefits from ANY treatment other than CPAP...The consensus is that NOTHING WORKs (i.e. surgery...) execept CPAP...( and a FEW posts that barely admit that...well, yes, dental devices have some slight promise.....

Truthfully, I refuse to believe that the Pillar Procedure, LAUP, UPX3, et al....are complete failures and frauds...YET there are NO success stories on this board that I can detect AT ALL....

As has been previously stated (repeatedly)......this IS CPAP support forum......but, all options have been discussed.

Pillar - 31 pages of posts

LAUP - 4 pages of posts

UPPP - 70 pages of posts

MMA - 17 pages of posts

septoplasty - 41 pages of posts

turbinate - 41 pages of posts

Since surgery is a direct competitor to the very lucrative CPAP industry....and best of all, it's (CPAP) another one of those treatment for life deals...The complete lack of published success stories makes perfect sense....

Lots of people who have had those "surgeries" still need CPAP/APAP/Bi-Level therapy......so, that speaks to their "success" as a stand-alone treatment/cure.

However, that turns this from an information board to one of at best pure advertisement...and at worst, propaganda...

Therefore, I have GREAT skepticism of the overall validity on the claims made here....

Methinks you're a moron.

I agree that CPAP is considered the GOLD STANDARD of treatment for sleep apnea....But to pretend it is the ONLY way to go...that is misleading at best...

FINALLY......a logical statement. (maybe you're only an idiot)

Industry paid posters....feel free to flame away....

Well, you asked for it. I'm still waiting for my check, too.......

PS. With regard to the title of this thread, I didn't consider you to be very "respectful".


Den (in some situations, it's hard to be "polite")


.

You sounded polite to me, Den, considering we'd all just been called coconspiring propogandists out to mislead people for profit.

Heck, if wanted to be one of those, I'd have picked up an application at the first B&M DME I dealt with.

aviator202 wrote:Since surgery is a direct competitor to the very lucrative CPAP industry...

You forgot what is on the other side of your coin....

CPAP is a direct competitor to the very lucrative surgery industry. Where does this fit in to your conspiracy theory?

This is probably a wasted reply. I suspect the troll is long-gone by now.

Tony

WHO RUNS THIS BOARD....these folks do:

wiki/index.php/User:Johnnygoodman

wiki/index.php/User:Carolyngoodman

Who Is Johnny?

Howdy, I'm Johnny. I'm part of a family business that runs CPAP.com, CPAPAuction.com and CPAPtalk.com. I post under the name johnnygoodman on CPAPtalk.

Life Before CPAP

I don't have Sleep Apnea and neither do my parents or immediate family. After years of gentle prodding, my inlaws were tested and have a much higher quality and sleep and life since. "Before CPAP" for me means before getting into the business, seeing how bad a situation most people found themselves in and becoming an advocate.

My CPAP Story

As a kid I made money by "bagging" CPAP machines for use in traditional DME RT setups or moving boxes of CPAPs from point A to point B. I think those early Saturday mornings were one of the places my father taught me the value of hard work. Largely though, I remember thinking that it was way too hot and way too early. So much for nostalgia!

When I was a junior in high school my father read a Wall Street Journal article on a new web site called Ebay. He searched for CPAP and found that his costs on products were less than the selling price. Even back then, I loved computers and he asked me if I could help him post pictures along with his auctions. In exchange for my services, he agreed to split the profits. Bingo! After a year of working on the internet business I was able to turn in my grocery store uniform and say goodbye to washing sweaty country club towels.

During the end of high school and through out college I hired fellow computer nerds to work along side me building software for the business. Our first project was clinical and paper work tracking software for my father's traditional DME business. Being young and working for a formal business, we decided to give the software a crazy name: Stringbean. It stuck and Stringbean software is still in use today. We were the first and for a very long time the only software that let doctors check the note by note progress of patients on the web in a HIPPA compliant way. In fact, if you take a look at Respironics software today, many of the features were pioneered in Stringbean.

The first thousand or so CPAP.com orders were hand written on invoice pads purchased from an office supply store. My father had to write them out daily and quickly grew tired of it. I told him, as someone who had never written out an invoice, "hey partner, its far better to have the business and write it out than to not have it, I'll go back to playing computer games in my college dorm room now." As you may have guessed, that didn't fly and as result we wrote MadCow, the CPAP.com order processing and product management system over that Spring Break and Christmas break. We still run it today and it works great.

Each break over college we would upgrade a portion of CPAP.com, MadCow or Stringbean. We had many adventures and I made a life long friends in the process. Also, I was going to Texas A&M (a state school) and so I exited college with a degree and no debt. Can't beat that with a stick.

After college, I started with the company full time. I brought along Theo Chao, who is kind of a local programming rock star. One time Theo was goofing off in the back of a calculus class and the teacher said "Mr. Chao, since you are not paying attention to my lecture, and it is obviously not challenging enough for you, please enlighten us by explaining the roots and basis of calculus." Theo answered the question, in depth! Though none of us understood what he was saying, the teacher backed off and he was assumed correct. Stunned silence gave way to legend. Don't play poker with this man. It's dangerous.

When Not Doing CPAP Stuff

1. Being Married. I believe marriage is a full time job, even more important than the job you work for money. Many of the cliches I've heard about marriage are spot on true. Marry your best friend, ride out the ups and downs and it gets better every day. I'd also add another - do the dishes promptly and exactly as your wife wants to you.

2. Reading Books. I believe I'm personally responsible for the high stock price of Amazon.com. Though generally frugal, I order books off amazon 2-3 times a week. Its bad. My wife allowed me to covert an upstairs room in our home into the Goodman Library. We went to Ikea and bought the nice bookshelves, complete with the little click on lights. We have recliners up there now too. Specifically I like books on small business, investing, philosophy, world events, historical fictions, libertarianism, survivalism, fantasty (D&D and Lord of the Rings style mostly), really old western dime novels, classic novels (I don't like the Russian stuff though - War and Peace being the excellent exception) and gardening books.

3. Training/Sparring. I've got a probationary first degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. This means I'm not actually good enough to win any given fight, but am arrogant enough to believe I can. The hedge my odds, I've recently taken up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which is all about ground techniques. It is blowing my mind and punishing my body. I hope to stick with it and eventually be well grounded in hand to hand self defense.

4. Growing Food. My wife and I have an awesome gardening rule: if it doesn't make food, it doesn't grow here. Though our front yard is still in violation of the rule due to home owner codes, our back yard is doing great. We've got these fruit trees: plum, peach, apple, lime, lemon, orange, fig, kumquat. Depending on the season, you can find these veggies and herbs in our garden: edamame (grows great in Texas, who knew?), tomatoes (roma mostly), potatoes (gotta used raised beds, but they go good in them), corn (never again though, poor yield for sq ft), broccoli, spinach, cucumbers, thyme, rosemary, basil, lemon basil, table onions and garlic (well, we've never actually eaten any from the garden - 2 failed attempts).

5. Music. I was the drummer for a band named Edgerton in college. We were pretty good and I had a lot of fun. We once opened for Bob Schneider when he came through College Station. Also, the drummer tends to drink free, which doubles one's college food budget. Now a days, I lean on a network of people to tell me whats new and good. I listen to and love a ton of a music and won't get into listing it all here. I like folk music the best. My brother is a folk musician and his songs are kind of our social group's national anthems. If you find us around a camp fire having beers, just wait and you'll hear us sing one or more of them, even if he's not there.

Lastly, regarding music, If you listen to just one band in your entire life, and you believe that music is not just about taking a sugar pill but that it really makes meaning, then you absolutely must listen to a brilliant album called In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel. Its creator wrote it about Anne Frank and about the tragedy of war in general and the human relations that ultimately drive the machine. It is really gut wrenching, but it also reaches you, shakes you and forces you to square up to beauty from both sides. One man's opinion...

6. Being On A Farm/Ranch. What I really like, but what doesn't pay, is being outside and working with my hands. My wife and I started going to a horse rescue farm almost two years ago. They taught us how to ride, how to care for horses and general farm life lessons. In exchange, we pay lesson fees and I help out with hay baling when its the time. Good trade!

My grandparents also happen to own the world's most beautiful farm up in Wisconsin. Carolyn and I like to get up there when ever we can. She has family over in Minnesota too and we got married on the Round Barn Farm in Redwing.

Wrapping Up

There's more stuff, but its lunch time and if you've made it this far in the biography, I'm thankful.

In parting, the state of CPAP care in our world is poor. Our business does all we can and all we can think of to make it better. Your reading this, editing articles and helping newbies who come to the website makes a huge difference. Thank you and keep at it.

well said yasulh !

I really enjoyed learning a little bit more about my host, Johnny. I think the drive-by troll is gone, but the members who make up this great place are here to stay.
M

This thread reminds me of a nature show about wolves.

One pack owned/controlled a certain valley.
Under their control they allowed a pair of coyotes to
feed on the remains of pack kills. As long as the pack
was fed and satisified the coyotes were welcome to the rest.

Over time, another pack pushed the original pack out and
took over control of the valley. The new pack did not
plan to extend the offer of remains of a kill to the coyotes.
No one told the coyotes.

The first time the big male coyote came down to a kill,
they chased him down and ripped him to shreds.

I love this place.

Normally, I see bait like this and just swim by; however there are many posts here that refute the original premise. For Example:

viewtopic/t47320/When-to-stop-using-CPAP.html

evbirch wrote:I was able to stop CPAP after my septoplasty/turbinectomy procedure. But several years later, I had to resume CPAP. My apnea is not as horrible as it was, but it is still bad enough that I don't have a choice. That being said, the surgery was one of the best things I've ever done. My daytime breathing is MUCH better and my allergies aren't nearly as bad.

My apnea isn't related to weight, but I think I've heard of people losing weight and getting off CPAP... Not sure about that.

I "joke" that when I started CPAP in my early 20s, I went through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Its all good, and I'm sure anyone can start a thread on the "surgery that worked for me". Wish I could report some results, but my ENT didn't consider me a worthy candidate at our last evaluation. Anyway, I think I'll go back to hawking goods for the competition at CPAPPlus.com, CPAP-Supply.com, and Sleepzone, so I can't be accused of being a CPAP.com stooge.

If you go for surgery I think you would be inclined to just trust the experts and 'it' as the solution and see what happens without too much investigation of your own.

With cpap it seems to me that it becomes almost a hobby in so far as you can have a good old play with what feels good and works, then take control and be the the main interpreter of the best treatment. You strive to, and eventually do, understand your affliction and what treatment alternatives/options are available.
'
Bloody marvellous for those of us that are worn out with experts who appear to 'know' but in the end prove to be total prats that have wasted vital time.

I just know that this place has helped me, it has helped me a lot... I think it highly probable that if I had not stumbled in here I would have given up again and missed this marvellous re-discovery of the me who now sleeps.

Whoever runs this site, THANK YOU!

You may well have saved my life!