CPAP , Hearing Aids and Diabetes- New is better !

My old experience as a physician seeing patients dealing with the various sleep apnea treatments including CPAP was not that good. It seemed that most  sleep apnea equipment was similar to  the use of hearing aids , a lot of people owned the equipment but few consistently used it.

Advances in technology has changed both  hearing aids and sleep apnea equipment into comfortable useful tools that are a pleasure to use.

 My new experience as a physician and a patient using new hearing aids and CPAP for for my obstructive sleep apnea is "Oh my goodness ! Why did I wait so long ? "

The diagnosis of sleep apnea and compliance to treatment recommendations have improved significantly in recent years. The new quite comfortable simple to use equipment coupled the expertise of doctors and respiratory therapist have had a big impact on the management of this problem.

There are various surgical procedures and different oral appliances that have had limited success .

I believe that the use of  CPAP  "continuous positive airway pressure" continues to be the most effective. These machines are quite and automatically adjust to deliver just the right amount of pressure needed to over come the airway obstruction. The humidity of the delivered air can be adjusted to your comfort.  The face masks have improved along with the machines to deliver warmed humidified air comfortable to your nose and mouth. The delivery of air  directly into a person's nose with something called Nasals Pillows has been a step in the right direction. 


If you have been diagnosed with sleep apnea , I suggest that you Google CPAP and also Nasal Pillows. Read and learn much as you can about the available equipment before your doctors visit . Decide on the features you would prefer to have with your equipment  and if possible  talk to someone who has sleep apnea and get their opinion on their pros and cons on the equipment they are using . It is possible to talk with some one ,ME . You can use the comment section below.


Your doctor will make recommendations based on his or her experience and  your test results . There is a lot of CPAP equipment with multiple options
If you have done your home work then you will be a better participant in the decision process .


Have fun, Take advantage  of the new wonderful advances in medical care.
  David Calder, MD