Sleep apnea other treatment


 * Associate Editor(s)-In-Chief: Kashish Goel, M.D.

Alternative treatments
Breathing exercises, such as those used in Yoga, the Buteyko method, or didgeridoo playing can be effective. There are muscles which act to tension and open the airway during each inspiration. Exercises can, in some cases, restore sufficient function to these muscles to prevent or reduce apnea.

A program which uses specialized "singing" exercises to tone the throat, in particular, the soft palate, tongue and nasaopharynx, is 'Singing for Snorers' by Alise Ojay. Dr. Elizabeth Scott, a medical doctor living in Scotland, had experimented with singing exercises and found considerable success, as reviewed in her book The Natural Way to Stop Snoring (London: Orion 1995) but had been unable to carry out a clinical trial. Alise Ojay, a choir director singer and composer, began researching the possibility of using singing exercises to help a friend with snoring, and came across Dr. Scott's work. In 1999, as an Honorary Research Fellow with the support of the Department of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter, Alise conducted the first trial of singing exercises to reduce snoring which she published with Edzard Ernst, "Can singing exercises reduce snoring? A pilot study." Complement Ther Med 2000; 8(3): 151-156. The results were described by Ojay as promising and after two years of investigations, she designed the 'Singing for Snorers' program in 2002.

The independent nonprofit UK consumer advocacy group Which? reviewed Singing for Snorers. Their physician Dr. Williams "feels the company is ethical in ‘offering aims not claims’ until research is complete." and the review stated that "Combining the programme with diet and exercise, the snorer in our test couple found real improvements in the volume and frequency of his snoring after six weeks. His partner is sleeping better, too." In the case of snorers who also have sleep apnea, there is anecdotal evidence from some of the users of Ojay's program, as she reports on her page, as reported by Charley Hupp, who flew to the UK to personally thank her, on his web page and as reported by one user in the UK on the discussion forum of the British Snoring and Sleep Apnoea Association. This person, Ken, reports that sleep tests before and after the program shows a significant effect: "my apnoeas had gone down from 35 to 0.8 per hour."

Position treatments
One of the best treatments is merely to sleep at a 30 degree angle or higher, as if in a recliner. Doing so helps prevent gravity from collapsing the airway. Lateral positions (sleeping on your side), as opposed to supine positions (sleeping on your back), are also recommended as a treatment for sleep apnea,  largely because the effect of gravity is not as strong to collapse the airway in the lateral position. Nonetheless, sleeping at a 30 degree angle is a superior sleep position compared to either a supine or lateral position. A 30 degree position can be achieved by sleeping in a recliner, buying an adjustable bed, or buying a bed wedge to place under the mattress. This approach can easily be used in combination with other treatments and may be particularly effective in very obese people.