As we know, there are an ever-increasing number of treatments for sleep apnea, especially mild to moderate sleep apnea. Commonly, CPAP is the first treatment to be used as it is thought to be one of the most effective ways of treating sleep apnea, although patient abandonment is high. Other treatments will then be recommended, including a few lifestyle changes, and then surgery will usually be recommended as a last resort. Sleep apnea is a treatable illness although it is not a curable illness, and you do have many options for treatment.
Having said that, many sleep apnea sufferers around the web have spoken out against their CPAP treatment, saying that they’d rather have the surgery. There are plenty of valid reasons why CPAP is used before surgery will be considered and why surgery will not be considered unless you’ve employed a number of lifestyle changes, and these are outlined below.
Surgery for treatment of sleep apnea does not have a particularly high success rate and frequently, the surgery does not have any lasting effect – so the surgery may work to start with, but then within a number of years, symptoms can begin to redevelop. Surgery can also have a relatively low success rate because more often than not, not all of the necessary areas are addressed during surgery. Research has shown that if you address the nose, soft palate, and tongue together, rather than just one of these things, the success rate of surgery can go up to around 80%. If you address the upper and lower jaw too, the success rate of surgery can go up to around 95%. But it is very rare that you’ll be offered the chance for all of these surgeries because of the cost and because of the risks associated with surgery.
CPAP is used because you can do a number of things to reduce your sleep apnea symptoms yourself whilst using CPAP to keep your airways open. Losing weight does help a large amount of patients, but it won’t help those that are already at their ideal weight or who are underweight. Other lifestyle changes include quitting smoking and quitting drinking or drugs if you’re affected by either of those things, learning some breathing techniques to strengthen your ability to breathe on your back and with your mouth open and learning throat exercises which include exercises involving the tongue, suction function, swallowing, chewing, breathing, speech, soft palate and lateral pharyngeal wall. These lifestyle techniques are often very helpful and can be instrumental in ensuring that CPAP or other types of sleep apnea therapy work for you. In some cases, these lifestyle techniques alone can prevent sleep apnea and enable the patient to be CPAP-free.
Because these lifestyle changes can often be so effective, doctors are often loathe to recommend surgery as a treatment option for you until you’ve employed these changes. Surgery involves anesthetic, which always carries a risk, as well as a recovery time of anywhere up to six months depending on the surgery that you have.
Patient abandonment of CPAP is the biggest reason for many individuals to ask for surgery and really, this is unsurprising, as patient education isn’t particularly high and people don’t know how best to manage the side effects that can arise from CPAP use. If you’re experiencing side effects from CPAP, you need to speak to your doctor as almost all side effects can be remedied, making CPAP a very effective treatment option. For example, many people complain of pressure and feeling suffocated whilst using CPAP – this may be due to pressure settings on the machine or the wrong type of mask, but the only way for you to remedy this is to see your sleep doctor so that they can advise you on what to do next.