#61

Received the results of my 2 night sleep study and scored an AHI of 9 on the first night and 13 on the second. This study was done before starting diamox aka acetazolamide.

So my mind is a bit blown right now as I started off 4 years ago with an AHI of over 60!

What exactly did I do to go from extreme all the way down to mild OSA? Honestly I am not quite certain of the answer to that. Especially given my issue is ENTIRELY tongue based and I have had no major fluctuations in weight.

Here’s some things that may have helped:

  1. Sleeping on an incline (minimum 30%) - I think this is the major factor. I reduced the incline a little on night two and got a significantly worse result.

  2. ExciteOSA - I had been using this device for a month prior to the study.

The result showed that I had twice as many events on my back than on my side in total. And yet I only spent 1/3 of the time on my back! By my calculation I can just about get myself into normal range if I can stay on my side so I have ordered the medcline pillow and the nightshift device which sits on the back of your neck and alarms if you move on your back.

I am going to continue the ExciteOSA and add in some myofunctional therapy too:

I have purchased a cheap “tongue retaining device”

These get some truly terrible reviews so we will see how it goes tonight.

I am also looking at the iNap device but it is proving very difficult to source and the manufacturer is not answering my emails

I plan on getting another sleep study done in a month or so. It’s going to be a little difficult to disentangle the various factors but over the course of several nights I hope to understand the effect of diamox + continued tongue exercises compared to adding in the inap or tongue retainer.

I am ASTOUNDED that all the advice I received before taking matters into my own hands was: this is a chronic life long condition WEAR YOUR MASK!

When the reality has been CPAP doesn’t always work well for tongue based issues and through very simple steps you can reduce your AHI by 75%!!!

Sure I still have a condition that requires treatment but lets see what the next sleep study reveals. Currently I am on target to be in the normal range by Christmas :crossed_fingers:

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