Do Oral Appliances Give The Best Results?

For this patient, the oral appliance plus nasal surgery equals great sleep.

Dr. Skarada:

So this is Doug Skarada, and I won't mention my patient's name. However, we have been fortunate enough to be able to take care of her with her nose and with her oral appliance, and we have a lot of folks talking about what their nasal surgery was like which is useful for other people, but we don't get a lot of people talking about what the oral appliance was like. Would you mind telling us a little bit about the oral appliance?

Patient:

It's really comfortable, and I was prepared to not be comfortable, but it was – right off the bat – it was comfortable, and then combined with the surgery, I've noticed a huge difference in my sleep.

Dr. Skarada:

That's really helpful to know. We want to look at the whole airway from the nose all the way down to the throat and not just take care of one level, and that's what happens too often in medicine. Either the nose doctor – ENT is just fixing your nose, or the allergist is fixing your allergies, or the sleep doctor is putting on a CPAP to pump air through, but we're trying to do it like that. And we have young folks who want to kind of have an active lifestyle; being hooked up to a machine isn't very helpful, so. So, thank you for sharing with patients who might be interested in an oral appliance a little bit about your experience. Thank you!

The other thing that I did a really bad job with here; this is me not being totally prepared. Sorry about that, but – you know. Actually, she's used the CPAP. Tell us about that.

Patient:

I hated it. I felt claustrophobic. I never could settle in. I was constantly fiddling with it. It was never the right section on my nose, and eventually, I just gave up and decided sleeping poorly and snoring was better than sleeping with the CPAP.

Dr. Skarada:

And that's the sad thing is I think that is a common conclusion. People aren't given lots of options. They're told, "Here, use a CPAP, and if that doesn't work, well, too bad," and was that your experience?

Patient:

That was the only option.

Dr. Skarada:

Yeah.

Patient:

I didn't hear of any other option, and my sleep quality has gone up. It's just been a few days,–

Dr. Skarada:

Okay.

Patient:

–but I know it's only gonna get better and better and better.

Dr. Skarada:

Thank you very much for sharing that. Appreciate it. Okay.

At the Modern Nose Clinic, we are more than just CPAP.