Patch new weapon in battle against sleep apnea - Health & Fitness ...

About 28 million Americans have sleep apnea, which causes repeated awakenings and pauses in breathing during the night, sometimes resulting in loud snoring and gasps for air. For decades, the standard treatment has been ?continuous positive airway pressure.? A mask worn at night pushes air into the nasal passages, enabling easier breathing.

CPAP reduces and in some cases completely prevents episodes of apnea. But the mask is like something from a bad science fiction movie: big, bulky and obtrusive. Many patients simply refuse to wear it or rip it off while asleep. Studies show that about half of all people prescribed CPAP machines stop using them in one to three weeks.

?For a lot of people out there, the CPAP machine turns into a doorstop,? said Dr. Joseph Golish, the former chief of sleep medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. ?CPAP is very effective in the sleep lab. But when people go home, there?s a good chance they won?t use it, and the success rate of an unused CPAP machine is absolutely zero.?

COURTESY OF VENTUS MEDICAL Provent Therapy uses the power of your own breathing to create Expiratory Positive Airway Pressure to restore natural airflow.

Now an alternative form of CPAP is gaining popularity: a patch that fits over the nostrils. Called Provent, the patch holds two small plugs, one for each nostril, that create just enough air pressure to keep the airways open at night. It is far less intrusive than the traditional CPAP machine. It is also more expensive, and it doesn?t work for every patient.

Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2008, Provent has spread mostly by word of mouth. But it has caught on fast. Its manufacturer, Ventus Medical, says it has shipped 1 million of the devices in the past 12 months, up from a half million total in the two years prior. Doctors say it has given them a new weapon in the battle against sleep apnea, and many patients who struggled with CPAP call it a godsend.

Bob Bleck, who owns a computer networking firm in Ohio, struggled with poor sleep and chronic fatigue for decades. But it was only a year and a half ago that he finally went to a sleep clinic, prodded by his wife, who worried about his heavy snoring.

The diagnosis was severe sleep apnea. Tests showed that in a typical night, Bleck, 47, awoke or stopped breathing 42 times an hour.

His doctor prescribed a CPAP machine, and Bleck hated it.

?I had this constricted feeling,? he said. ?It would be incorporated into these dreams where I was tied up, like in the movie `Alien.? It was more difficult to sleep with that thing on then to just get through the night with the apnea.?

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