Featured Patient #104
Featured patient #104 came with her husband to our office for a consultation regarding her snoring which was interfering with her husband’s sleep. She had been to see an ENT physician who had referred her to the hospital’s sleep lab to rule out sleep apnea. The result of the sleep study indicated “loud snoring but otherwise unremarkable polysomnography”. In other words, this was medical terminology for “Other than the fact that you snore loudly, you don’t have a problem.” In further consultation with the ENT, she had ruled out a surgical approach to snoring relief.
At the initial consultation, patient #104 denied any daytime sleepiness or fatigue. However, when asked how she felt when she awakened in the morning, she replied, “Waking up is hell.” Her husband indicated that once she had her shower, she was fine for the rest of the day, but that he often had to go the bedroom several times to get her out of bed.
Since it had been several years since she had her sleep study, we did a home sleep study to verify that she did not have obstructive sleep apnea. The result of the home sleep test agreed with the hospital test, but indicated a significant amount of upper airway resistance which is often overlooked by hospital sleep evaluations.
An oral appliance was fabricated for patient #104 and her immediate response at our follow up appointment was “Waking up is wonderful” I no longer hit the snooze alarm 3-4 times before getting up.” Follow up home sleep evaluation revealed that her pulse rate during sleep dropped 7 beats per minute with her oral appliance in place indicating a much more restful sleep. In addition the Watch PAT home sleep monitor indicated a dramatic increase in REM sleep from a sub-normal 10% to 30%.
