Epiglottal Obstructive Sleep Apnea

[Smokin Joe]

After several sleep studies and failed CPAP attempts I recently found out the cause of my OSA.
I had a septoplasty last week to correct a severely deviated septum on the right side of my nose.
During the pre-surgery interview the ENT surgeon asked about Apnea and my treatment method.
I told him that I had mild to moderate apnea and tried CPAP with no success.
He said that while I was under anesthesia that he would perform a Sleep Endoscopy to see if he could pin point the cause of the OSA. He did.
Post surgery I was able to see the video and the cause.
I have Epiglottal Sleep apena in which the epiglottis closes off the wind pipe upon inhalation.
A very low percentage of folks have this in comparison to Soft Pallet and tongue type apnea.
Who would have thought!!
CPAP is gnerally not recommended for this type of apnea which makes sense.
So now after several years of cpap failure surgery is the next step.
I just wanted to share this information and say that after the very first sleep study a person should see a ENT Specialist and have the Sleep Endoscopy to identify the cause of sleep apnea before using CPAP.

 

[jonro]

How long will it take to recover from the surgery? I think I may need the same surgery and I'm interested to hear about the recovery and the results.

 

[Smokin Joe]

jonro,
It could be a one or a two part surgery depending on the following;
If you have a soft pallet issue this must be corrected first and could possibly fix the epiglottis problem as well by relocating the muscles in that area.
If that does not solve the epiglottis issue then that will be the second surgery.
I tried to press the surgeon to do both at the same time but he refuses.
The recovery from the soft pallet surgery is brutal from what I,m told with a two to three week recovery pending no problems.
I am requesting another Sleep Stud to validate the findings and then to make a decision. Surgery possibly the first of the year as I'm recovering from the last.

 

[Pringle]

Thanks for sharing. I have sleep apnea and struggle even with CPAP. Will look into with my doc.