Stop snoring and sleep apnea....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 10-25-2012

1.  After seeing an ad for an alternate treatment for sleep apnea for people who don’t like or do well with the CPAP device, I thought I’d do a new post on this topic.

Then I found a reference to my post on this subject on Tuesday, 5-8-2007

I’ll use some parts of that post in this one.

“If your significant other complains about your snoring or worse --

Or, if you wake up without feeling rested & then have little energy all day or fall asleep when you’d rather not during the day even though you spend enough time in bed sleeping–

Or, if you’ve been diagnosed as having sleep apnea—

There’s information you should know about.

Snoring in your bed partner can deprive you of sleep or restful and efficient sleep while having sleep apnea directly and definitely causes these things.  Sleep apnea is dangerous and can cause high blood pressure, brain damage, strokes, & heart attacks.

Both snoring & sleep apnea can ruin your sex life or strain your marriage. They often deprive people who have them of normal energy & vitality.

There may be a way you can get rid of all or most of that within a few days for & just a few bucks.

Some solutions take a good bit longer.  But even they can be partly done in a few days in many cases.

Snoring can be caused by the flap in your throat partly blocking your air flow while you sleep.  If it’s not too bad, you may be unaffected and not even be aware of it.  But if it’s loud, it can wake your bed partner or disrupt the sleep of your bed partner and cause you problems in that way.

This kind of throat closure can also cause sleep apnea by completely shutting off your air until your body causes you to gasp for air. 

When that happens, even if you don’t wake up, it disrupts your sleep and increases your physical stress all of which makes your sleep far less effective, increases high blood pressure and more.  Sometimes the lack of oxygen from not breathing on a longer breath stoppage can harm you.

Falling asleep while driving and getting killed or harming other drivers or falling asleep enough at work to do it poorly or get fired all have happened to people with sleep apnea.

Worse, a recent study found that as many as half the people they studied had some degree of sleep apnea.

For low level snoring from this cause, one simple solution is to sleep on your side and NOT on your back.  When you sleep on your back, gravity pulls your tongue back into the back of your throat and snoring often results.

For more severe snoring from this cause and for sleep apnea which is mostly caused by this, the wonderful news is that there is a fast and effective treatment.

(Being obese or severely obese makes this bad snoring and sleep apnea far more likely.  So one sleep apnea treatment and sometimes cure is to lose all or most of that excess fat.  We now know this is doable.  But it isn’t easy and may take two to five years if you have enough to lose.  We do posts on how to lose fat permanently quite often.)

The best news is that the fast and effective treatment for this kind of obstructive snoring or sleep apnea has even turned it off in obese people!

It’s called the Pillar Procedure.

(Instead of the previous idea which was to cut out some of this part of your throat which removed its functionality, hurt like hell, and sometimes caused infections, the Pillar procedure simply inserts a small somewhat hard plastic reinforcer to hold the tissue out of your airway.)

The Pillar procedure does a minor implant in the tissue in your throat that slips down to block your breathing. It is reported to work quite well. And the recovery time is so fast, some people have gone to work later in the day when they’ve had it done in the morning.

If you travel a lot or if your snoring or sleep apnea are quite severe, you may want to check it out at www.pillarprocedure.com .  It also may be worth trying!  (Traveling a lot can make using a CPAP machine almost undoable or at least much more of a hassle.)

The Pillar Procedure costs several hundred dollars. Plus, as busy as many of you are, it can be hard to get that done even if you might have an interest in doing it.

This is because you do need an evaluation appointment with the doctor. You need an appointment to have it done. And, you should have a follow up appointment after you’ve had it done to see how it’s worked for you.

Another treatment is called the CPAP or continuous positive or forced airflow airway pressure device which adds a breathing mask to an air pump which holds your throat open enough to turn off this kind of snoring and sleep apnea.  Some people can’t use it and some won’t.  But for some people who aren’t that bothered by it, they feel so much more rested when using it, they are OK with it.

I like the Pillar procedure better because I’m someone who would NOT like the CPAP device AND when you use the CPAP device it’s like continuing to be sick and having to use a crutch indefinitely while the Pillar procedure is a cure when it works.  By using it, you no longer have the problem!

2.  For some people, snoring can be caused by airflow problems in their nose.  This does NOT cause sleep apnea as far as I know however.

But for snoring problems, it may make the best sense to see a doctor who treats this condition AND performs the Pillar procedure who can diagnose which kind of snoring causes you have.

For someone with the nose problems only, the Pillar procedure may not stop the snoring.

http://www.eossleep.com/ is the website for the EOS sleep doctors who do exactly this kind of work.  They do all of the above and are located in the San Francisco Bay/Silicon Valley area of California, in several locations in New York, and in Philadelphia.

3.  What if you are pretty sure you have obstructive snoring in your throat only or you have sleep apnea AND you hate or can hardly use the CPAP device AND for whatever reason, the Pillar procedure is not for you or too expensive?

There is a device you put into your mouth when you sleep that does the same thing as the Pillar procedure or the CPAP and holds your airway open.

I recently saw an ad for one:

Their ad said it was an effective alternative for people who hate or won’t use the CPAP device.

See www.gotsleepapnea.com . 

4.  Even if you cure your sleep apnea or treat it successfully with one of these methods, if part of the reason you had them was because you were obese or severely obese, being overfat; underexercised; or both can also harm your health & ruin your sex life.  Losing fat can also improve your results in stopping snoring and sleep apnea in many cases.

So, if you also suffer from those conditions, please stop eating refined carbohydrates, high fructose corn syrup, & drinking ANY soft drinks. Eat a lot more green, nonstarchy vegetables & lean protein & beans -- & nuts if you are not allergic to them. And, carefully add some regular walking & strength training to your life each week.

Within days or at most a few weeks, you’ll be much healthier. And, if you keep doing it from now on, you’ll be a LOT less fat.  That will also improve your sex life & will help protect you from even more expensive to treat & dangerous diseases.

Two fast and effective snoring cures....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 8-17-2010

In yesterday’s, San Francisco Chronicle (Monday, 8-16-2010) the lead story on their Datebook section was about these two methods.

Though obesity can cause snoring or make it worse and even help trigger sleep apnea, reversing it has two problems as a snoring cure.

Although it can be done, doing so is neither fast nor easy to do.

Second, you can lose all your excess fat and still have most of your snoring problem in many cases.

Here are two extremely valuable methods that are quite effective at stopping snoring.

1. Quite some time ago, we posted on the Pillar procedure which has two wonderful things going for it.

It’s so noninvasive, you can have it done on Friday and be back at work on Monday. Some people even have it done over their lunch hour and go back to work that afternoon – although they may work by email only that afternoon.

Second, it simply shuts down the major cause of snoring so well, over 80% of all snoring stops once it’s done.

(Most snoring is caused by the uvula, or back of the throat flap vibrating. It’s a bit like an unlatched screen door banging in the wind. The pillar procedure is like having a few tiny door stops added to help hold it open. The tiny inserts actually stiffen it enough that it vibrates less or not at all.)

The Pillar procedure is also FDA approved and has been for quite some time.

2. Most of the people who the Pillar procedure does not cure almost entirely --snore from their nose instead of the back of their throat.

Since this is caused by having their nasal passages too narrow or that swell shut from allergies, it can also cause mouth breathing and bad breath.

(I’ve had this occasionally and temporarily from allergies. I call it “air-brake nose” since that’s exactly what it feels like.)

In snoring, this is usually caused an enlargement of the balloon shaped membranes, called turbinates, that line your nasal passages.

Nasal turbinate reduction using FDA approved coblation therapy is done at the doctor's office using local anesthetic --- usually in less than 20 minutes. And it's over 90% effective in improving nasal airflow.

And, by doing both these two procedures if necessary, something like 95% of all snoring can be stopped successfully.

Not surprisingly, one of the two doctors interviewed by the writer of this story has a practice that offers both these procedures -- and a third noninvasive method to reduce the size of the uvula in people where it is simply too large or loose for the Pillar procedure to work.

Dr Matthew Mingrone is the medical director of the Sereno center recently opened in downtown San Francisco. He practiced in the South Bay of the San Francisco area before that and has considerable experience. The center specializes in effective and noninvasive treatment of snoring and sleep apnea.

Its website is: http://www.serenocenter.com .

The only bad news is that the until now extremely short sighted insurance industry has not covered these procedures.*

But compared to many medical procedures and surgeries it doesn’t cost that much, in the $2500 to $3600 range according to the Chronicle article.

*(Since the noise of bad snoring can ruin marriages and, unfortunately often does, the health harm from that alone justifies it being covered. But it also disrupts the sleep of the snorer sometimes by enough to cause excessive sleepiness which can lead to lower productivity at work and even fatal car accidents. Worse, the sleep apnea associated with it can kill though high blood pressure, heart attacks, and more – and it does. So, I think it likely costs the insurance companies more to treat the consequences than it would to cover these procedures. )

In closing, we do often post on effective ways to lose fat and its added weight.

So, if snoring is an issue for you and you have more than 20 pounds to lose, try some of the methods we suggest in our posts. They do work when used; and we aim for those that are doable and sustainable.

If you have more than 20 pounds to lose and lose even 20% or 30 % of it, you are likely to find your snoring will improve.

Why even a bit of fat loss is so good for you….

Today's Post, Monday, 6-1-2009

You may have read that if you are overfat and don’t exercise, getting into some form of safe, regular exercise will improve your health even if you lose no weight on the scale right away. We’ve posted that here several times.

You may also have read that losing enough fat to cause you to lose as little as 5 % of your bodyweight will give you health benefits you might have thought you’d need to lose four or five times as much to get.

If you lose the fat weight by beginning to exercise, the direct benefits of exercising are one of the reasons. (And regular exercise makes it dramatically more likely the weight you lose is fat instead of bone or muscle – plus dramatically more likely the fat you lose will stay lost.)

But the health benefits of losing even 5 or 10 % of your bodyweight are so dramatic, clearly something else must be happening too. In fact, losing that much by positive diet changes only has almost as good effects. So what gives?

Earlier today I read the reason why.

In a NewsMax Health email in a “Blaylock Tip” titled: "Beer Gut Could Lead to Deadly Diabetes",

DR Blaylock says that the fat INSIDE your belly, the internal abdominal fat, studies have found, releases lots of chemicals and hormones that cause or help cause “diabetes, hypertension, and abnormal blood lipids (high LDL-cholesterol and triglycerides with low HDL).” And, as we’ve noted in our posts, that combination of bad readings, low HDL plus high triglycerides and high LDL means that you have lots of the small particle LDL that glues itself into the surface of your blood vessels and directly causes plaque build up and cardiovascular disease.

Now, here’s the key fact in his email.:

Losing even 5 to 10 percent of your weight reduces internal fat by more like 30 %!

Another study he reports found that 70 % of people who had metabolic syndrome were cured when they lost that much internal abdominal fat. A separate study helps explain why, that much abdominal fat loss causes a dramatic reduction of insulin resistance. That not only can cure metabolic syndrome, it can prevent or help cure type 2 diabetes.

And there is even more. Using surgery to remove virtually all the excess abdominal fat reduced “hypertension by 62 percent, diabetes by 77 percent, abnormal lipids by 70 percent, and sleep apnea by 86 percent.”

Among other things that shows that one of the most effective treatments for sleep apnea is fat loss that helps get rid of internal abdominal fat. This sounds like a way to cut sleep apnea out completely!

And, even a 5% drop in bodyweight can get rid of up to 30 % of internal abdominal fat.

Early to Rise also had an article recently on this topic.:

“This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com . “


Why Swimsuit Season Isn't the Only Reason to Reduce Your Waist Size

By Jonny Bowden

The main reason people over 65 wind up in the hospital is heart failure. And the very best predictor of whether or not you're likely to get heart failure might surprise you.

It's waist size.

A new study published in the journal Circulation tracked data from two Swedish population-based studies. Together, the studies included 80,000 men and women, aged 45-83. All participants filled in questionnaires about their height, weight, waist size, and other vital statistics. Researchers then followed the subjects for seven years.

The researchers found - not surprisingly - that being overweight was linked to a risk for heart failure. But they also found that even within the normal weight range (with a body mass index, or BMI, of 25 or less), those who had an extra 10 cm (about 4 inches) on their waist had about a 15 percent higher risk. This went up to 18 percent for those who were heavier (with a BMI of 30 or more).

Nutritionists and smart doctors have long known that a 35-inch waist for women and a 40-inch waist for men represent danger points for insulin resistance. And insulin resistance is the cornerstone of Metabolic Syndrome, also known as pre-diabetes, which significantly increases the risk for heart disease.

If your waist is over 35 inches (for women) or 40 inches (for men), it's time to start doing something about it. I've found that a low-carb diet is one of the most effective ways to combat belly fat and reduce the size of your waist.

[Ed. Note: In addition to eating a low-carb diet, you'll want to engage in regular exercise to help burn fat. For dozens of easy-to-follow exercises you can do at home, plus the latest breakthroughs in the health industry, sign up for ETR's free natural health newsletter right here.” (Go to http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com .)
“For more advice about staying fit and healthy, check out health expert Jonny Bowden's site, JonnyBowden.com.]”

X* X* X* X* X* X*

Here’s two of the best ways to lose inches off your waist and internal bodyfat too.:

1. So, a low carb diet, or at least one that removes the worst carbs close to completely, while adding more health OK proteins and oils such as grass fed beef, nuts, nonfat and very lowfat dairy, wild caught fish, extra virgin olive oil, and avocados AND a lot more green or nonstarchy vegetables not only is one of the best ways to lose fat, it’s quite effective at losing this internal bodyfat as well.

Plus the foods with monosaturated fatty acids, what Prevention magazine labels, MUFA, in nuts, extra virgin olive oil, and avocados apparently are directly effective in helping to reduce belly fat. (Their book is called the Flat Belly Diet.)

You also need to eliminate all hydrogenated vegetable oils, most butter and other dairy fat, most other kinds of oils, high fructose corn syrup, foods made with refined grains, and as much sugar as you can bring yourself to give up. (Sugar once or twice or even five times a week may be OK in small amounts if you eat this way otherwise and exercise regularly. Eating large amounts of sugar, eating it several times a day, or doing either while eating these other high carb and bad fat sources will grow internal belly fat.)

2. The most effective kinds of exercise to lose bodyfat, lose internal fat, and turn off insulin resistance have a key similarity. They may not last huge amounts of time. But they are vigorous and can be safe once you build up to it gradually and keep the high intensity per time brief.

What exercises do that?

Interval cardio, progressive strength training, playing competitive sports, jumping rope, using a mini-trampoline, quite brisk execution of martial arts moves or routines such as Tae Bo or Karate or Kung Fu all work.

And, many of these are in fact on record as being effective at losing fat and belly fat.