If you hate CPAP, then you need to check out my blog every Tuesday for the Tuesday Tips for CPAP Strugglers. If you can’t get use to the CPAP, the most common reason is that you have not found the right mask, so you think that you hate the CPAP when in fact you hate the mask.
Today’s Tuesday Tip is to find a comprehensive sleep center that handles their own CPAP machines and masks because that way you have medical professionals working together to treat your sleep apnea and help solve the problems that you are having with the CPAP therapy. Employees of medical supply companies who, by the way, are usually not health professionals, simply cannot deliver the same quality of care. Such a sleep center should do what we do at Northshore Sleep Medicine: we let you take home and try many different masks without repeatedly billing you or your insurance company. We guide you toward the best masks and then let you take home as many as you need until you find the perfect fit and comfort for your face and your sleeping patterns.
And remember CPAP is the gold standard therapy for obstructive sleep apnea and the only proven first-line therapy for severe sleep apnea. It is in your own best interest to make a good effort to use the CPAP if that is what your doctor prescribes. So don’t be fooled by the advertisements from dentists who encourage you to “hate CPAP” and to give up on it and switch to their expensive oral appliances that often do not adequately treat the sleep apnea. There is an appropriate use for the oral appliances, but only a physician should be making that recommendation, not a dentist.
Sleep apnea is a serious medical disorder that, if left untreated, increases your risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity and dementia. It goes without saying that the treatment is best guided by a sleep physician. If you snore, have excessive daytime sleepiness or for some other reason suspect that you have sleep apnea, do not start by going to a dentist who advertises that he treats snoring. Start by going to a reputable sleep doctor, preferabably at a comprehensive sleep center, who will then refer you to a trustworthy, experienced dentist if the oral appliance ( AKA: mandibular advancing device) is an appropriate therapy for you.
