Surgery vs. CPAP for Sleep Apnea?
My husband (age 55) has been using a CPAP for two years because of severe sleep apnea. His doctor has told him that he could have surgery but that he cannot guarantee the results. I would be interested in hearing from others who have had this done and what kind of results you got from the surgery and would you do it again, or stay with the infernal machine.
Tagged with: cpap • infernal machine • sleep • sleep apnea
Filed under: Sleep Apnea Machine Questions
I am 49. I sleep so much better using a CPAP, it may have saved my life. Unless he can’t tolerate the mask, and it is working, I see surgury as an unnessasary risk. The surgery is not trival and often does not work.
As far as sleeping, the rush of the air puts me right out. I can skip a night or two without it, but I do feel more tired. The key is to have a good fit on the mask.
I use a CPAP machine also and I’ve never heard of a surgery that could help to get someone off of it. It would help if you gave us more info. The only thing I can think of is that alot of people with sleep apnea are over weight. Are you talking about some kind of stomach surgery? Losing weight can clear up sleep apnea to the point where you no longer need your CPAP machine.
My whole family has sleep apnea, except mom, and we all have close to severe sleep apnea, and we’ve been using the CPAP for few years now. My sleep specialist told me that surgery is an option. However, no matter what type of surgery you will have, you are not guaranteed 100% that it would improve. I also had a TMJ specialist and ENT specialist, who said that they would recommend using the CPAP than the actual surgery.
If you are having a surgery, where you are getting your jaws cut to make them wider, I know someone who did that, because of sleep apnea. He said that although he still has to continue using the CPAP machine today, because it hasn’t made it much better, he said that he would do the surgery again, because it improved at least a little bit. However, according to him, it takes a lot of recovery time, and you can’t eat solid food for a while.
I also heard of the surgery, where you pull the bottom of the tongue so it doesn’t fall back to the back of the mouth to obstruct the airway, and another method is to make the back of your throat tighter to open the airway. However, I heard that the success rate, is not super-duper high, and there aren’t that much doctors around the country who do these kind of surgery (although I got this brochure about this one guy who does the CPAP surgery, who is in Northern California).
I never had a surgery myself, so I’m not sure if this was a great help or not, sorry! But I hope your husband is feeling alright! Having sleep apnea is not amusing…I thought it was really nice of you to worry about your husband. Most people assume that sleep apnea isn’t that serious, but when you have it, it seriously is! I wish they could find a way to better the sleep apnea instead of using the CPAP machine or surgery in the future…
Stay with the machine.