Herckleperckle
Member
11-20-2003
| Monday, August 21, 2006 - 5:45 am
Source: Ivanhoe.com Reported April 24, 2006 Implants Help Sleep Apnea
LOS ANGELES (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Sleep apnea is a tiring disorder that causes people to stop breathing while they sleep. In the United States, 1 in every 20 men and one in every 30 women live with it. Now, a new procedure may put an end to this exhausting condition. As a busy art director in Los Angeles, Tony doesn't have time for a sleep disorder. "When I'd wake up in the morning, I'd be completely worthless, and I would feel like I hadn't slept at all," he says. "People always were at work going, ‘God, you look so tired. You look so tired!'" Like 18 million Americans, Tony has sleep apnea. The condition causes people to stop breathing during sleep. Those brief breaks can happen up to 400 times a night! "Every time this happens, you lose sleep. You may never get any deep sleep," Martin Hopp, M.D., an otolaryngologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, tells Ivanhoe. The Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, or CPAP, machine is an effective treatment, but it's cumbersome. Now, there's an easier fix called the Pillar Procedure.
Dr. Hopp says, "If you have mild sleep apnea, you will do really well with this procedure." During the 30-minute procedure, doctors put three tiny implants in the soft palate. The implants, and the scar tissue that forms, stiffen the palate. Dr. Hopp says it's like putting a batten in a sail or a stiffening rod in a sail so it doesn't luff anymore. "If your soft palate is stiff, it doesn't fall backwards, and you don't stop breathing." Studies show it works in two-thirds of patients with mild sleep apnea.
A sleep study showed Tony stopped breathing 26 times an hour. Then he had the Pillar Procedure. "I automatically noticed, you know, I was more awake and more alert and I could do more. I wasn't ... I would sleep harder," he says. And his new sleep habits have given him more energy for his job and his life. The Pillar Procedure is FDA approved and is done as an outpatient procedure. Patients cannot feel the implants, and they can have them removed if they experience problems. Doctors have only been performing the procedure on patients with sleep apnea for about four years, so they're still not sure how permanent the effects are. If you would like more information, please contact: Cynthia Harding Public Relations Director Cedars-Sinai Medical Center 8700 Beverly Blvd. TSB Room 210 Los Angeles, CA 90048 (310) 423-4768 cynthia.harding@cshs.org
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