Posted by Illuvatar on April 29, 2008 at 20:12:06:Hi, folks!
I had my first sleep test in March of 2005, which found me to have severe apnea. I attempted CPAP for several months, but literally could not sleep with it, so I was refered to a surgical center at Stanford.
My surgeon was quite thorough in his analysis and recommended tonselectomy, UPPP, tongue advancement, and the hyoid procedure. For financial reasons, I opted for everything but the hyoid procedure.
Everything went well, and I seemed to improve drastically after the surgery. I did not have a follow up sleep study immediately afterwards (again for financial reasons... all of these procedures are expensive!), and it seemed, with the level of subjective improvement I experienced, along with my insomniac partner's noticing that I no longer choked, that I had been significantly improved.
Recently (the last 6 months or so), I have noticed the return of fatigue, concentration and cognitive symptoms, high blood pressure and night time heart arrythmias, and my doctor convinced me to finally have a follow up study.
I was shocked to find that my apnea was every bit as severe as in my first test, with the only major improvement showing in the level of oxygen desaturation. The apnea index is as high as it was before.
I went back and spoke to my surgeon again, and he told me that they've found that if apnea is not entirely surgically corrected, there tends to be this kind of prolonged relapse that accelerates as time passes. Almost not noticable at first, but eventually becomes intolerable in a few years. For me, I seem to have crashed out pretty hard in the last few months.
Does anyone have a similar experience to this? My surgeon said that the physiology underlying this form of relapse is not understood, which I didn't find to be a satisfying answer.
I am now scheduled to have the hyoid procedure and a correction to my badly deviated septum. The surgeon said that because I did not have a 6 month study done following the initial procedure, he was in murky waters giving me a estimate of my chances of being significantly improved. He said that if I wanted the best chance possible, I should opt for the MMA, but if he was advising his brother, he would recommend the hyoid procedure and possiby RF first, under the assumption of doing all of the minimally invasive procedures first. I have to admit that the thought of having my jaw broken makes me squeemish, but I'm hesitant to have only the hyoid done if there's a limited chance for improvement. I mean, my last surgery only worked for about 2 years!
If any of you have any experience similar to mine, I would really love to hear about it. I'd also welcome any input or experiences folks have had relating specifically to the hyoid proceedure.
Thanks for taking the time to read my long post. I'm SO glad I found this site - wish I had it before my first surgery!
- Re: Had U3P, tongue adv, Hyoid next?? Captin Cannuck 15:30 4/30/08 (0)
- Re: Had U3P, tongue adv, Hyoid next?? dave in aust 22:06 4/29/08 (0)