Hi everyone, it's Dr. Dan Gartenberg here, sharing my personal saga of tackling sleep apnea. Last time we chatted, I was diving into my sleep apnea evaluation using this cool new device called Wesper. It lets you check your breathing health right from your home and connects you with an MD for a diagnosis. So, I went all in with Wesper.co, tracking my sleep over three days, and got my official diagnosis of mild to moderate sleep apnea from a connected MD.
Armed with this diagnosis, I headed to my dentist and got the ball rolling with my insurance to cover a mandibular advancement device from Panthera. It’s like a mouth guard that pushes your lower jaw forward, which is backed by hundreds of studies for treating mild to moderate sleep apnea. Insurance only covered half since I have an EPO, but with a PPO, you'd get around 80-90% covered. It usually costs about $3k out of pocket… If you are a dentist, chiro, or sleep specialist, please reach out to me at dan@sleepspace.com about how you can incorporate this into your practice.
After a couple of weeks, my dentist crafted my MAD device. It's super simple to put in and use, and once in place, it pushes my lower jaw forward, opening up my airway. The next step was crucial-ensuring this device was actually working. For severe cases, CPAP is usually the go-to, but there are other treatments like Inspire, or you can consult an ENT for more options. But since my case was mild to moderate, I opted to try the MAD first.
I used Wesper again to validate the device's effectiveness. Initially, my moderate apnea showed an apnea-hypoxia index of 13.2 on the less conservative metric (3% oxygen desaturation) and 7.8 on the more conservative metric (4% oxygen desaturation). Ideally, you want fewer than five events per hour to avoid a sleep apnea diagnosis, but aiming for one or two per hour would be optimal for health.
After retesting with the device, my apnea events dropped significantly. The less conservative metric showed 5.5 events per hour, and the conservative metric showed just 2.1 events per hour. This improvement indicated that the device was effectively treating my sleep apnea.
Looking ahead, I'm planning to incorporate weight loss into my treatment and then retest without the device to see the impact. Wesper’s affordability at $67 a month makes it accessible for ongoing sleep health monitoring. You don’t need to use it nightly-just periodically to keep tabs on your sleep health and make informed decisions. You can unlock this technology today with this special link that goes into details about my sleep journey:
sleepspace.com...
That's it for my journey so far. I'll update you in another video, hopefully with more progress and insights. Have a great sleep!
Remember to consult your doctor on all things medical!