Obstructive sleep apnea is a dangerous life threatening condition that can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Untreated sleep apnea has been shown to cause high blood pressure, gastric reflex, metabolic disorders, short term memory loss, and a host of other problems that adversly affect the quality of life of patients.
CPAP is an extremely effective method for treating apnea but recent studies have shown that 60% of patients abandon it's use. Many patients who continue to use CPAP but feel like their CPAP isn't helping because they still feel tired even though their sleep test has shown that the therapy eliminated their apnea.
It is very dangerous to abandon CPAP therapy without instituting other therapy to treat the apnea. Patients considering giving up on their CPAP would do well to discuss the use of comfortable oral appliances as an alternative to CPAP. Oral appliances have been accepted by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine as an effective alternative to CPAP for mild to moderate sleep apnea and an alternative to CPAP for severe sleep apnea when patients cannot tolerate CPAP.
When patients are offered a choice of CPAP or oral appliances over 90% chose oral appliances. While the objective data sometimes shows a slightly lesser effect for oral appliances patients frequently report feeling more rested when wearing oral appliances. An enormous benefit of oral applaices is that patients usually use them for the entire night. CPAP users average only 4-5 hours nightly use. There is a subgroup of CPAP users who love their CPAP from the first night and use it all night, every night. An interesting fact is that this group loved their CPAP from the first night and never reported problems with their CPAP. Patients who do not like CPAP initially rarely become enthusiastic about utilizing CPAP. This group is about 25% of CPAP users and they usually use their machines much longer than the 4-5 hour average. What this means is that the other CPAP users are using it considerably less than than 4 hours.
There is good news for patients who do not like or do not tolerate their CPAP machines, research has shown that outcome measures of oral appliances are similar to CPAP. A Chicago, Illinois dentist formed I HATE CPAP! LLC to help patients find dentists qualified in Dental Sleep Medicine to treat patients who either do not like their CPAP or how they feel after using it as well as patients who have given up on CPAP.
Every month thousands and thousands of unique visitors and patients visit http://www.ihatecpap.com to learn more about the dangers of untreated sleep apnea and to understand how oral appliances may be the answer to their prayers for a better nights sleep for themselves or their loved ones.
Dr Shapira sees patients in his Gurnee dental office and he has formed Chicagoland Dental Sleep Medicine to meet the demands of the multitude of patients seeking to improve their lives with a better nights sleep.
I HATE CPAP! also has trained sleep apnea dentists across the United States that can be found on the I HATE CPAP! site at http://www.ihatecpap.com/
The newest member of the I HATE CPAP program is The Dentist's Studio Dr. Zachary Hodgins located at:
1350 Orange Ave , Suite 106
Winter Park, FL 32789
Tele: 321-280-9130
Other Florida doctors in the program include Dr Joseph M Barton located in Jacksonville and Dr Jill Morris in Sarasota, Fl 34231
