Sleep Apnea Treatment: Sleep Apnea Information and the Availability of Treatment Choices

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) January 23, 2009 -- There are Treatment Choices Besides CPAP for many patients diagnosed with sleep apnea. Most patients are immediately prescribed CPAP, or continuous positive air pressure consisting of a mask, hose, compressor and possibly a humidifier and sent home with their new devices. There are many great success stories with CPAP use and patients who do not tolerate the treatment often feel like failures.

Nothing could be further from the truth, in fact, according to numerous medical studies in the most prestigious journals only 23-45% of patients tolerate CPAP. These studies also show that even among patients who use CPAP most only wear it for 4-5 hours a night not the recommended 7 1/2-8 hours nightly. WWW.IHATECPAP.com is an excellent site to review possible treatment choices. This site offers hope and useful information for patients with CPAP Intolerance.

Patients who cannot tolerate CPAP or who wear it but feel no better or worse are usually not informed of alternative treatments. Many who are told about alternative treatments often are referred directly to a surgeon because sleep physicians are more comfortable with physician referrals than they are in referring to a dental practitioner. The problem is that upper airway surgery has not been very effective in treating obstructive sleep apnea.

Dr Shapira founded I HATE CPAP! LLC to help patients challenged by CPAP and his website www.ihatecpap.com is designed to help patients find their way thru the confusing maze of medical jargon and referrals. He emphasizes that he does not "HATE CPAP". He initially was met by resistance by a few members of the medical community because of the name of his website but enlightened physicians now recognize that Dr Shapira's website www.ihatecpap.com is not in competition with the sleep community but is actually promoting sleep medicine in a very positive way. Many patients who had quit their treatment with CPAP at great personal health risk have returned for sleep apnea treatment as a direct result of this website, This is also making the roads and highways in Chicago safer because patients with untreated sleep apnea have a 600% increase in motor vehicle accidents.

An article in Sleep and Health Journal discussed the advantages of oral appliances from a sleep apnea dentist over surgery. The article SLEEP APNEA TREATMENT: ARE DENTAL APPLIANCES MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN SURGERY? can be found at the following link.
http://sleepandhealth.com/modules.php?name=News&file=art ... another article in Sleep and Health Journal, Oral Appliances vs. CPAP, can be found at:
http://sleepandhealth.com/modules.php?name=News&file=art ...

A recently published article showed minimal improvement with CPAP tolerance after surgery. The article "Impact of upper airway surgery on CPAP compliance in difficult-to-manage obstructive sleep apnea" was published in Arch Otolaryngology Head Neck Surg. 2008 Sep;134(9):926-30 by Chandrashekariah R, Shaman Z, Auckley D.
Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, MetroHealth Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University

Their conclusion was "CONCLUSION: Upper airway surgery in select patients with OSA may improve CPAP compliance and should be considered as a potential adjunctive therapeutic measure in poorly compliant patients with OSA."

The usage of oral appliances was not discussed in the article but previous studies have shown that oral appliances are more effective than surgery and have much greater compliance than CPAP. The majority of patients who given a choice between CPAP and oral appliances overwhelmingly prefer appliances. www.ihatecpap.com is an educational site devoted to informing patients and their loved ones about the dangers of sleep apnea and providing extensive information on CPAP alternatives. There is a find a dentist area on the site to help patients find a Sleep Apnea Dentist in their area.

Dr Ira L Shapira put this site together a Diplomate of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine who is a pioneer of this field.

He was involved in research in the 1980's as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Rush Medical School's Sleep disorder clinic working with Dr Rosalind Cartwright a psychologist who was involved in the creation of Sleep Medicine and is probably the single individual most responsible for Dental Sleep Medicine being accepted as a major component of sleep medicine. She published the first medical articles on oral appliances utilizing the Tongue Retaining Device invented by Dr Charles Samuelson a Psychiatrist. She has been a champion of Dental Sleep Medicine from its inception. The February 2006 issue of SLEEP published new parameters of care for oral appliances that recommend oral appliances as a first line of treatment equal to CPAP for mild to moderate apnea and as an alternative treatment for severe apnea when patients do not tolerate CPAP. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine endorse these findings. This is only possible due to enormous contribution of Rosalind Cartwright.

Dr Shapira returned to the Sleep Center at Rush in the 1990's and treated patients with oral appliances until 2001. He has continued his work in Dental Sleep medicine in the Chicago area. He teaches a course in Dental Sleep Medicine to dentists from around the United States at his Gurnee, Illinois practice. He has recently started a new practice Chicagoland Dental Sleep Medicine Associates dedicated to bringing the finest in dental sleep medicine treatment to Chicago and Suburban patients. He currently has four Chicagoland Dental Sleep Medicine locations in the Chicago area. Gurnee, Skokie, Bannockburn and Schaumburg but is planning several additional offices across Chicago proper and in other suburbs.

Dr Shapira has excellent working relationships with several sleep centers besides Rush and has trained many sleep technicians in the art of appliance titration. He regularly works and trains technicians with Dr Alexander Golbin and The Sleep and Behavioral Medicine Centers in Skokie, Bannockburn and Vernon Hills and can see patients in the Bannockburn office. He has an office in American Sleep Center in Skokie and in Schaumburg in the office of Dr Alan Acierno a prominent dentist known for his compassionate manner and excellent prosthetic and cosmetic dentistry. He has trained technicians at Evanston and Glenbrook Hospital Sleep Centers, Lake Forest Hospital Sleep Center, Alexian Brothers Sleep Center, Central Dupage Hospital Sleep Center, Merit Sleep centers, Saint Francis Hospital and numerous other sleep labs in Illinois and Wisconsin. His titration protocols have been sent to sleep labs around the U.S.

Dr Shapira's research in the 1980's at Rush was to evaluate the jaw position of patients with sleep apnea and to compare it to the jaw relations of patients with TMJ disorders. Treating patients with chronic TMJ disorders and severe pain has been a professional passion of Dr Shapira. A story he wrote in Sleep and Health Journal, SUFFER NO MORE: DEALING WITH THE GREAT IMPOSTOR prompted hundreds of patients to find neuromuscular dentists to treat their chronic pain. SUFFER NO MORE IS AVAILABLE AT: http://sleepandhealth.com/modules.php?name=News&file=art ...

The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institute of Health (NIH) published a paper CARDIOVASCULAR AND SLEEP-RELATED CONSEQUENCES OF TEMPOROMANDIBULAR DISORDERS that confirmed the research that Dr Shapira did at Rush in the 1980's. This excellent article can be found at: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/meetings/workshops/tmj_wksp.pdf

More information can be found online at http://www.ihatecpap.com

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