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I got my 50% number from viewing the AHI reduction charts that Provent supplied.
Yes, 50% of the people...and of those 50% who had some sort of success...they got about 50% reduction in events.

I can't seem to find them at the moment but it showed pre Provent AHI and post Provent AHI and pretty much every one was around 50% reduction in the AHI.

It isn't on the Provent site that I just looked.. let me see if I can find it and I will post back.

The doctor who made these things said that even HE took 4 nights before he could stand them enough to fall asleep. The whole idea is to block your exhale enough to create " back pressure" to try to keep your airway open. If you fell asleep your first night with provent, your better than even the doctor or anyone else that has tried them. Congratulations to you.

I tried them when I was a "miracle video". I wanted a sample but they don't let you use "samples" because the distributer told me that it can take two weeks before your comfortable enough to sleep with them and sample patients all give up. I had to pay 65.00 out of pocket for 30. I went through 4 the first night because every time you take them off to breathe, you need a new band-aid provent. I got them for my flights. I can't always afford first class to hook up a cpap. I could never sleep with it. the minute I would fall asleep (you can breathe with your mouth), my mouth would stay open and if I used something to shut it, it was hell. Good luck.

There is a tiny, tiny hole for the air to come out, as it's a one way valve. You can breathe in, but not out. That's the idea of provent. wile your feeling like your suffocating, that forms a "stent".

I meant to say that i tried them when I SAW a miracle video. The one of the woman on their web site.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=65286&p=704450&hili ... nt#p704450

Above link to a recent Provent discussion here. Last page there is an image of a graph showing reduction numbers.
My error..it shows a little more than 50% reduction in the number of events. I didn't do an exact correlation of each set of numbers. It appears to be some where between 50 & 60 % reduction in the number of events.
Example shows...
Mild...without Provent AHI 8.8 and with Provent AHI 3.9.... 55% reduction
Moderate...without Provent AHI 20.2..and with Provent AHI 8.4....roughly 56% reduction
Severe....without Provent AHI 48.2 and with Provent AHI 18.9...roughly 61% reduction

This was from a report publish by Provent. So even if I was one of the 50% of the people who had "success" by their definition...I probably wouldn't expect to see my 53 AHI reduced to a level that would be suitable for me. Yeah..better than nothing for sure but still way higher than I would find acceptable.
Besides..knowing my luck..I would end up in the other 50% who didn't have what they would term success.

neurotony wrote:The sleep study was one of the worst night's sleep I've ever had. It was a split study - 1/2 to get a baseline and the other with a CPAP. I woke up multiple times with the panicked feeling I was being suffocated by that damn machine. We went from the nostril plugs to the nose mask to the full mask and I felt smothered by it on each one. The tech beligerently insisted I got better sleep on the CPAP - the reality was my blood-shot eyes and cranky demeanor did not believe her for one bit. I've always been a deep sleeper and nothing bothered or woke me once asleep, but I swear that infernal machine felt like it was going to be the death of me.

neurotony, I'm glad you're here and it is good that you are willing to deflect the expected negativity from some members about Provent.

Before my sleep study, I too was determined to reject acceptance of a cpap machine and mask as a solution to my problem, which I was only aware of because of the reports by my girlfriend and my daytime sleepiness. I had read all the material on Provent and I listened to and watched the testimonial videos on their website over and over until I felt like I could recite their enthusiastic descriptions over and over. I did not have a split study, but my 2nd study - titration - with straight cpap was exactly like yours - the continuous pressure of the cpap gave me too "the worst night's sleep I've ever had" and I was a total wreck the next day all day, so I thought I had reinforced my case against a mask and machine.

When I obtained and read my detailed report from the sleep lab, however, I learned from that report that I had a combination of both obstructive and central sleep apnea, and so back to my googling research, at which point I was unable to find any support for the argument that Provent would treat central apnea, despite its serious consequences if left untreated. (What I did learn was that continuous pressure during my second sleep study was the likely cause of my "worst night's sleep I've ever had") and that an ASV machine, not a cpap, was what was needed for my condition.

I mention my personal experience because there is no reference in your original post to the contents of your written sleep study report. What was your AHI? How many events per hour? How many awakenings did you have? How many arousals? What was your periodic limb movement index? What was your sleep efficiency ratio? What was your sleep stage distribution? And most important of all, what was your overall diagnosis, and did it include or exclude Central Sleep Apnea?

Clearly, cpap did not treat my Central Sleep Apnea, but made it worse. Is there any evidence suggesting that Provent treats Central Sleep Apnea? If not, what are the consequences of leaving it untreated? Is it possible that, like cpap, Provent may make Central Sleep Apnea worse? These are the questions I asked myself, which led to me reluctantly abandoning my resistance to the mask and machine and my initial plan to try Provent. (And although I was surprised to find that my adjustment to an ASV machine (S9 VPAP Adjust) was much easier than I had expected, that is not my point here.)

Perhaps you have already received and studied the contents of your sleep study, but you don't mention having done so, nor do you mention its contents. In the interests of the full, fair and illuminating discussion of the issues you raised, and for your own benefit, would you care to share that information?

Best regards, Nate

Exciting! I'm glad to hear you were able to fall asleep with it. I'm shortly going to be following suit, trying Provent, and I'm concerned about whether I can tolerate it, and whether, if I can tolerate it, I can keep my mouth shut during the night. There are people who use a chinstrap with it, but if there's a long period of awake time before falling asleep, that might be uncomfortable. I'll have to see when I get mine.

neurotony wrote:@jaybee72 - I haven't had my post-sleep study consultation yet and won't for a couple of weeks. It's why I asked the Dr if I could try it in the interim, just to start some form of treatment and to have some results using Provent since I think we both view it as experiemental in nature. If it all goes well, I'm hoping that I can do another sleep study with the Provent to see how effective it is overall. I think adding the oximeter to my measurements is going to be more helpful than the results from the snore monitor app. Though it is cool to hear me NOT snoring.

I'll gladly post the sleep study results when I have them.

Sorry, neurotony. I didn't see this followup post from you when I posted all my questions about the results of your report.

I do think your post-sleep study consultation with your doctor would be a lot more meaningful however if you asked to be given the report at least several days in advance, so that you could review it, research its contents, and prepare your questions and followup questions for your doctor. But that's just me. Whenever I neglect to do that in advance of a doctor's appointment, I think of my best questions after I've already left the doctor's office.

Nate

neurotony wrote:It's this kind of animosity I'm talking about. It stops people like me from posting information I came here looking for in the first place. Admitedly this isn't as bad as some of the posts here I've seen - but it is equally accusing. Why do you guys feel the need to criticize so much? Is your CPAP not working and you're just cranky? (wow - look! actual proper use of "your" and "you're"!)

I re-read my post to try and understand what made you feel I was so full of animosity, and realized that one of my - typical - typos :a "k" dropped from "ask" - made me sound badly unwelcoming -- not my intention at all.
I was confused by the fact that you seemed so knowledgeable about sleep apnea forums, and yet asked forum members to tell you about other forum's to post in. The dropped "k" made in sound like a I questioned you right to be here as as a member. Not my intention at all - you're very welcome to be a posting member on this forum. Here is my corrected text:

ozij wrote: Hmmm, when I googled "sleep apnea forum" cpaptalk wasn't even on the first page of the results...many other "sleep apnea forums" on my google page. I have to admit I didn't check them for the "mix of love, indifference and hate" that you found "in the forums". Which forums were you reading on which you saw that aforementioned mix? What in the world kept you from posting on them? What in the world made you post in a cpap forum, and ask forum members for "better sleep apnea forums"?

Here is your explanation:

neurotony wrote:OZIJ: By forums I meant threads here -
I rarely post in forums so please forgive the mixing up of the words "forum" and "thread"

neurotony wrote:I didn't search for "sleep apnea forums", but thanks for assuming I did. Next time just ask me. I searched for"Provent review" which is how I got here. Try it yourself and see

I was actually assuming you did not search for sleep apnea forums and trying to help you by giving you a tool that would point you to other sleep apnea forums. You have just confirmed my assumption. It was your interest in Provent that got you here. That's fine. The more you post, the more we all get to know about the many types of solutions for sleep apnea.

For example, the revived discussion of Provent's chances of helping has brought out the following points:

• It may help 50% of the people,
• If you belong to the 50% it helps, it may drop the AHI score by a bit more than 60% os so
• It does not help if you have central sleep apnea.

All very pertinent facts to anyone looking for alternative therapies.

I also tried to help you post images by quoting Pugsy's instructions. I'm glad to see you understood how to do that, although you did not thank me for it, but that's ok. Thinking I tried to poke holes in your personhood must have been very upsetting - maybe you didn't read the rest of my post. The main thing is -- now you can post images.

NateS wrote:I mention my personal experience because there is no reference in your original post to the contents of your written sleep study report. What was your AHI? How many events per hour? How many awakenings did you have? How many arousals? What was your periodic limb movement index? What was your sleep efficiency ratio? What was your sleep stage distribution? And most important of all, what was your overall diagnosis, and did it include or exclude Central Sleep Apnea?

I second Nate's questions. That too is very pertinent to the discussion. jaybee72 also asked about your sleep study, even before Nate:

jaybee72 wrote:So, I don't think I missed it in any of your posts - what was your AHI from that sleep study? In fact, might be good info for this journal to post the results of that split study to give a good, concrete baseline to work from. (Of course blanking out the personal info first...)

, and this was your response:

neurotony wrote:@jaybee72 - I haven't had my post-sleep study consultation yet and won't for a couple of weeks. ...<snip>...
I'll gladly post the sleep study results when I have them.

We couldn't ask for more. And should they refuse to give you the results, you'll find many threads on cpaptalk explaining how to get over that hurdle.

SleepingUgly wrote:Exciting! I'm glad to hear you were able to fall asleep with it. I'm shortly going to be following suit, trying Provent, and I'm concerned about whether I can tolerate it, and whether, if I can tolerate it, I can keep my mouth shut during the night. There are people who use a chinstrap with it, but if there's a long period of awake time before falling asleep, that might be uncomfortable. I'll have to see when I get mine.

Wishing you lot's of success with Provent, SU. I hope you too will share your results with us. It would be so wonderful if this worked better for you than CPAP has.
When are you getting yours?

NateS wrote:

neurotony wrote:@jaybee72 - I haven't had my post-sleep study consultation yet and won't for a couple of weeks. It's why I asked the Dr if I could try it in the interim, just to start some form of treatment and to have some results using Provent since I think we both view it as experiemental in nature. If it all goes well, I'm hoping that I can do another sleep study with the Provent to see how effective it is overall. I think adding the oximeter to my measurements is going to be more helpful than the results from the snore monitor app. Though it is cool to hear me NOT snoring.

I'll gladly post the sleep study results when I have them.

Sorry, neurotony. I didn't see this followup post from you when I posted all my questions about the results of your report.

I do think your post-sleep study consultation with your doctor would be a lot more meaningful however if you asked to be given the report at least several days in advance, so that you could review it, research its contents, and prepare your questions and followup questions for your doctor. But that's just me. Whenever I neglect to do that in advance of a doctor's appointment, I think of my best questions after I've already left the doctor's office.

Nate

Ah, I see Nate posted as I was composing my long response to neurotony.
Great advice, Nate.

ozij wrote:Wishing you lot's of success with Provent, SU. I hope you too will share your results with us. It would be so wonderful if this worked better for you than CPAP has.
When are you getting yours?

I should be finding out today when I will get them. Hopefully it won't take too long. I was planning to start a thread about my experience with Provent once I get started.

I also saw those graphs from the makers of Provent, showing how much it reduced the AHI of mild, moderate, and severe groups. I mentioned to my doctor that considering my AHI is in the severe range during REM, it might not lower it into the normal range (all this assuming I can even tolerate the apparatus!). I didn't get a very specific answer to that, other than the impression that it's hard to know who it will help and who it won't, and it's worth a try. And as you would say, aggregate data doesn't always generalize to individuals! For me, it would be a miracle if I can (1) tolerate it, and (2) it reduces my EDS. If I can get through those two steps (please, please, please), then I would have a sleep study with them. Without CPAP my SaO2 is 92-93%, so I am not too worried about anything other than whether it helps me symptomatically. At this point, if I have a significant residual AHI in REM, but I am not tired during the day and my SaO2 is good, I will feel like I've won the lottery, as that's better off than I am now.

I will report back when I start using them.

05/01 Provent 1st Night sleep continued...

Here's the longer screenshot of the night's snore monitoring:



It shows there is some snoring when the monitoring started for about 15 minutes, though it is below the calibration point. The other spikes are me turning over and the cats mewing for food and/or attention.

Overall, I woke up twice in the night which is why the monitoring is broken up. But I didn't wake up with the panic feeling I did with the CPAP machine. It was a pretty restful sleep.

I made it out the door without forgetting my keys, wallet, bus pass or eCigarrette. Not a first, but noteworthy.

I didn't have that late-day tiredness and went the whole day non-stop. Even went to dinner and a movie with a friend.

05/02 Night's sleep on Provent
Last night wasn't a good night - the Provent plugs fell out!

I woke up to my alarm noting I had slept throughout the night without a break. At first I as like "All Right!" and then I noticed the plugs were gone.




When I looked at the graph it looks like they fell out around 12:30 - an hour and a half after I went to bed. After I put the Provent plugs in I kept feeling wind on my lips and kept thinking the seal was broken. It was one of the vents that was pushing my exhale downward over my mouth, but it still bothered me. So I took them off and repositioned them. Apparently that's not a good idea since it must have weakened the adhesive. I really "blew a gasket" on this one. Heh.

It is interesting that the last couple hours showed low snoring. Since it's at the same level as the earlier part of the night (and higher volume than last night) the plugs may have simply been out already at the start. I dunno. I wish the sleep position part of the App was reliable to know what position I was in when that happened.

Thanks for all the support, comments and, yes, skepticism - I'll reply to everyone likely after work tonight.
I still don't have an oximeter and I will add that when I get one.

Again, I don't have my sleep study results yet and will post it when I get it. This won't be for a couple weeks.

We had a number of people post brief testimonials and I am sure that some of them were employees of Ventus and their posts could not be trusted.

neurotony wrote: I've known for years that I've snored and that, likely, I stop breathing when I sleep.

neurotony wrote:The sleep study showed I have apnea and the Dr., at my request, gave me a script for Provent this afternoon.

You had a sleep study. What was your AHI? What levels of desats did you have? What was your RDI?