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Comment by addicted | Hacker News Reader

For me it was sleep apnea. It was undiagnosed and I have lived most of my life basically exhausted.

Once I was diagnosed, thanks to a CPAP recall/shortage during the pandemic I couldn’t get a CPAP machine so used a custom fit oral appliance which took a few days to get used to, but once I did I woke up one day, having done nothing very different from any other day, feeling fresher than I can ever remember feeling.

It was fascinating to realize that I had basically lived my entire adult life of over 2 decades in a half asleep stupor.

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It can be incredibly hard to get a diagnosis. Even when you are shown to have it, you can find out that insurance uses an entirely different metric and, therefore, will refuse to pay. I don't get any sleep as a result and there's not a thing I can do from what it seems.

I paid cash for mine, all in around $2500, but it was worth it to skip the insurance hassles, constant monitoring, and just get what was recommended by the Doctor directly.

If it's sleep apnea, go to eBay and buy a CPAP for $100. It'll be the best $100 you spent.

Make sure you know how to calibrate it though.

As the other commenters mentioned: there is something you can do.

Put your health before saving money.

Did you have any issues with the device when you first got it? I've been using a cpap machine for a while, but it took me literally years before I could sleep through an entire night with it on. I've been thinking of either having surgery or going the oral appliance route this year.

For me the trick was a full face mask (Dreamwear, where the hose comes out the top of your head) and a heated hose.

I was initially resistant to the full mask, thinking it would feel more restrictive than the nose-only, but distributing the pressure over a wider area ended up feeling a lot more comfortable.

Similarly with the heated hose, my initial thought was that it would feel like breathing hot air all night. The the actual effect is that it keeps the added humidity from condensing out out of the air and gurgling in the tube.

Not OP, but it took me a year of actively reading my machine data and changing settings to figure it out. Have you tried OSCAR?

I have! Or I think it was sleepyhead? It helped me a little bit, but I think I had a hard time figuring it out because I wasn't really wearing it for very long before I'd take the mask off, so it didn't feel like there was enough data each night.

I did also post to one of the apnea boards with data from it and they helped figure out better pressure settings for me which did help some.

I have been having serious issues getting used to it. What do you mean by surgery and oral appliance? Thanks.

My old dentist made and sold these, but the oral appliance is a custom-fit mouthpiece that forces you to keep your lower jaw forward while you sleep, preventing airway collapse.

achileas mentioned the oral appliance. It's apparently somewhat common, but I didn't know about it for the longest time either.

For surgery, it really depends on your body and what the cause of the apneas are. In my case, it is _probably_ due to tonsils + a long(?) palette. An ENT told me I could have surgery to remove the tonsils and also shave down the palette, but I didn't go through with it because it sounded like a terrible recovery time and didn't have any guarantee it would actually fix the issue.

If you haven't already, it might be worth talking to an ENT (Ear Nose Throat) specialist that also deals with sleep apnea. The oral appliance definitely sounds like the less painful option though.

Thanks for the info. I suffer from it as well. Can you please write in more about the "custom fit oral appliance" ? I'm interested in trying it myself.

Not OP, but old dentist made and sold these. It is a custom-fit mouthpiece that forces you to keep your lower jaw forward while you sleep, preventing airway collapse. It’s the same thing you’re taught to do for CPR to force the airway open.

Oh man, I had something like that as a kid, for my overbite. It was called a bionator and was like a retainer on steroids.

Can you say more about this custom appliance?

It positions your lower jaw so that your airway is more open.

Can we buy this custom appliance over the counter without a prescription to try it out?

I think my dentist offered it for $3600 without insurance? I haven't done it yet, but I want to. They did need proof of a sleep study, but I think that is more of an insurance thing.

This probably does something similar. https://www.sleepon.us/mrd-m2/

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