11/23/2024

What to do if You Have Sleep Apnea

Follow these tips

As a young physician in Sydney, Australia in 1979, Colin Sullivan conceived of an experiment to help people with nighttime breathing issues. After several months of waiting for the right patient, he met a construction worker so tired from disrupted overnight sleep that he habitually dozed off on the scaffolding.

The man had sleep apnea—his airway was obstructed, which interrupted breathing at night, waking him repeatedly. But he refused Sullivan’s recommendation for surgery to create an opening in the neck, the only known treatment back then.

The day had come for Sullivan to try a contraption he’d invented, a "big swimming pool pipe attached to a blower,” as he describes it. Through a mask, the device delivered air into the man’s nose, creating a slight increase in pressure that kept his airway open. He slept peacefully for the first time in years.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.