Featured patient of the week #107 is a classic example of the difficulty that many patients have in finding out options for the management of their sleep apnea.  This patients is a physician who had been diagnosed with sleep apnea quite a few years ago and who had been prescribed CPAP therapy.  I have been very clear throughout this website that CPAP is a godsend for untold hundreds of thousands of sleep apnea patients.  However, there are huge numbers of patients that absolutely cannot tolerate CPAP.  

There is a belief in much of the medical community that if you merely educate the patient about the need for therapy and try enough different CPAP masks, that the patient will soon tolerate CPAP.  This physician needed no education about the need for his therapy.  As a doctor, he well knew the danger of sleep apnea coupled with his heart condition.  He tried every possible CPAP combination before abandoning that treatment.  Luckily he heard my interview on “Sound Medicine“, the National Public Radio program sponsored by the Indiana University School of Medicine and quickly scheduled an appointment.  Patients do best in dealing with any medical condition when they have information about the options for the management of their disease!

The photo at right shows Patient #107′s dental condition showing the deep overbite so common in many patients with sleep apnea.  This dental condition represents less room for the tongue making it easier for the tongue to block the airway during sleep with the muscles in the base of the tongue are relaxed.

Sleep apnea puts a great deal of stress on the cardiovascular system, making this disorder particularly important to manage with Patient # 107.  Shown below is a chart documenting the tremendous improvement is maintaining appropriate oxygen levels throughout the night that were obtained with oral appliance therapy use in this patient.  Before using oral appliance therapy, this patient 68 times during the night when his oxygen levels dropped between 4 and 9% and 24 times when O2 levels dropped between 10 and 20%, a significant stress on the heart!  Using his oral appliance no significant oxygen desaturations were noted.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 27th, 2008 at 9:58 am and is filed under Featured Patient. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.