Inspire Sleep Treatment: 6 FAQs Answered- Sleepon

08/09/2022 | SLEEPON | Blog | Leave a Comment

Has your partner ever complained that you snore during the night? Have you wondered why you still feel tired or fatigue after a full night of sleep? Or do you have difficulty staying sleep at night?

If you have been facing issues above, you might have sleep apnea. If your symptoms are server, you might even need to go through inspire sleep apnea treatment.

But sleep apnea? For a person that might think snoring is normal, you probably even haven’t heard of this word before.

Before you go to a doctor, this article is to answer six frequently asked questions to give you some insights of sleep apnea and inspire sleep apnea treatment.

What is sleep apnea?

According to Mayo Clinic, sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that you may experience breathing repeatedly starts and stops. If you’re experiencing loud snore and feeling tired after a night of sleep, you might have sleep apnea.

In general, there are 3 types of sleep apnea:

Obstructive sleep apnea, which affects 2% to 9% of the adult population in the US, is a respiratory disorder that causes people experiencing either complete or partial collapse of the upper airway during sleep. It can lead to trouble breathing in sleep and even disturb your bed partner.

For more information, please visit obstructive sleep apnea.

Central sleep apnea, which appears among 0.9% of those who are over 40, happens when your brain doesn’t send proper signals to activate respiratory muscles. It is mainly defined by pauses in breathing because of lacking respiratory effort in sleep.

For more information, please visit central sleep apnea.

Complex sleep apnea syndrome, which is also known as treatment-emergent central sleep apnea, includes the symptoms that both has both obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea have.

What are the symptoms of sleep apnea?

Based on Mayo Clinics, the most common symptoms of sleep apnea include:

Loud snoring
Pause of breath during sleep — which would be reported by another person
Gasping for air during sleep
Awakening with a dry mouth
Morning headache
Difficulty staying asleep (insomnia)
Excessive daytime sleepiness (hypersomnia)
Difficulty paying attention while awake
Irritability

What is inspire sleep treatment?

Inspire sleep treatment, also know as inspire sleep apnea treatment, is an upper airway stimulation (UAS) treatment, aiming to open your airway when you’re sleeping. It uses an implantable device that’s placed in your chest to monitor and help with your breathing during sleep.

You need to meet the following criteria for the procedure:

Moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea (AHI of 20-65)
Unable to use or get consistent benefit from CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure)
Not significantly overweight
Over the age of 22

Now you might want to understand AHI.

AHI, stands for Apnea Hypopnea Index, is a metric in sleep test that records the number of apnea and hypopnea episodes per hour of sleep supervision to analyses them and determine the degree of sleep apnea severity the patient suffers from.

In fact, you don’t have to spend too much money on measuring it because you can use a sleep tracker for this matter and other sleep metrics. An affordable sleep ring with the best value can monitor not only your AHI, but also your heart rate, blood oxygen, HRV, and more. It can help you know your sleep better before heading to the doctor to spend a numerous amount of money.

How does inspire treat sleep apnea work?

As opposed to CPAP, a treatment must reply on a mask and a machine to deliver air pressure to you, inspire sleep treatment is a maskless alternative. It’s a small implantable device placed under the skin in the chest to monitor your breathing patterns and stimulate a nerve that controls muscles at the back of your throat, which keeps your airway open during sleep, to help you sleep peacefully and breathe normally.

Inspire sleep treatment provides you with a handheld remote which you can easily turn on before going to bed and off after you wake up. It has been FDA approved since 2014 so you know it is proven safe and effective.

One thing needs to be noticed is that inspire sleep treatment is a small outpatient produce so you may take up to 30 days to heal after the procedure. You can go back to your normal life once it’s activated. The battery life is designed to last 7 to 10 years.

How much does sleep apnea treatment cost?

CPAP can normally cost $1,900 to $4,500 if you think that’s already expensive. Inspire sleep treatment, on the other hand costs around $29,000 alone. However, around 100 private insurance and Medicare offer full or partial coverage for those in need.

Are there other alternatives to treat sleep apnea?

This might be the first question we have after knowing the cost of inspire sleep treatment. Don’t worry, there are, there are several options available to help you get back on track. Mayo Clinic lists these self-care tips to treat sleep apnea:

Lose some weight. Weight loss might relieve constriction of your throat so that sleep apnea can be solved if you return to a healthy weight.
Do regular exercises. Try at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise, such as a quick walk.
Avoid alcohol and certain medications such as tranquilizers and sleeping pills. Because they can relax the muscles in the back of your throat, interfering with breathing normally at night.
Sleep on your side or abdomen rather than on your back.
Quit smoke. Smoking not only can disturb your sleep at night but can also lead to lungs problems.

Choose the Right Treatment for You

If you suffer from sleep apnea, you might be tempted to reach for sleeping pills as well. However, according to Dr. David Dinges, director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at Boston Medical Center, these drugs aren’t always safe. In fact, he says, some of them can lead to addiction and other side effects. That’s why he recommends using natural remedies instead.

In addition, it’s always good to know your sleep pattern before going to a doctor or make any judgments. Having an affordable sleep tracker with rich data can give you a hand. More importantly, it can track AHI, Apnea Hypopnea Index, to give you an idea if you have sleep apnea or not.

Recommended by both Sleep Foundation and Healthline, the Go2Sleep (Hot Summer Sale in $99) Tracker from Sleepon gives you a variety of rich data for its price. It can offer you the best value if you want to know more about your sleep health.

The tracker fits your finger perfectly with light weight and food-grade silicon material. Its mobile app supports IOS 10.0 above and Android 4.2 above. It is also waterproof so you can be at ease if it gets wet accidentally.

Conclusion

Inspire sleep treatment can be an option if your situation is severe. This article talked about what the treatment is, how it works, how much it costs, and so on along with explaining what sleep apnea is.

However, having a healthy lifestyle can definitely prevent you from health and sleep problems – do a quick walk every day, avoid too much alcohol, don’t smoke, and maintain your body weight, don’t sound difficult if you can be consistent.

If you would want to know your AHI, heart rate, even blood oxygen level, having a sleep tracker, like Go2Sleep, can be a valuable way to collect the information. Just think about it, $99 vs $29,000, which one to choose? We believe the answer is clear.