So why is Jason, an all American guy writing a piece on sleep apnea, He's not a Dr.
Well Truth be told, I have been working with a company, WhisperSom, for a few years on a device to treat sleep apnea. I was drawn to this company because I believe my father suffered from untreated sleep apnea, which ultimately created many other co-morbidities that led to his death.
From the American Sleep Apnea Association Website "Sleep apnea is an involuntary cessation of breathing that occurs while the patient is asleep. The Greek word “apnea” literally means “without breath.” There are three types of sleep apnea: obstructive, central, and mixed. Of the three, obstructive sleep apnea, often called OSA for short, is the most common. Despite the difference in the root cause of each type, in all three, people with untreated apnea stop breathing repeatedly during their sleep, sometimes hundreds of times during the night and often for a minute or longer. In most cases the sleeper is unaware of these breath stoppages because they don’t trigger a full awakening."
Many people don't realize it but the following diseases have been linked to sleep apnea:
Heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, anxiety and depression, substance abuse, certain types of cancer.
Currently, there are only a few treatments available, non of which are very palatable to a person trying to get some sleep. These include:
CPAP (Continuous positive airway pressure) and Bi-PAP machines. These machines force air through a mask on the face. The air pressure forces your airway to remain open while you sleep.
Mandibular Advancement devices. This is a mouth guard that places your jaw into a position to keep the airway from closing.
Implantable devices. This requires surgery to stimulate the brain while you are asleep.
These three treatments are not very user friendly, and nearly 50% of all CPAP users quit using the device in the first year given its invasiveness.
WhisperSom Corporation is a medical device and informatics company that has developed a novel approach to preventing or treating central and obstructive sleep apnea, as well as snoring, with personalized hapto-acoustic neural stimulation.
WhisperSom therapy is noninvasive and inherently safe. It requires nothing on the face, in the mouth or nose, and it is designed to increase adherence to treatment.
In full-night field trials, WhisperSom therapy was observed to prevent or treat both central and obstructive apneas and reduce hypoxic load from apneas without waking test subjects.
WhisperSom’s breakthrough device is initially intended for patients who cannot tolerate or are restricted from use of CPAP and other treatments, as well as during post-operative recovery and opioid therapy when both central and obstructive apneas are known to occur.
We hope to bring our device to market soon.
If you or a loved one snore heavily you should immediately take the Stop-Bang test and see if you need to be evaluated by a doctor. I have included a few links below, for additional information.