Sleep Apnea. Does anyone here have it?

A dentist can make a device that is easier my apnea condition. It slightly moves your mandible forward and prevents the full airway closure. I have one called TAP3.

I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea in 1999. I would stop breathing more than 90 times in an hour. I could never remember my dreams in the morning and it turned out that I never was asleep long enough to enter the REM state where you dream.

If you do go for the surgery get as much in the way of pain meds as you need. Pain slows healing and in the USA most doctors under proscribe pain medication.

The surgery is the biggest night mare I have ever regretted. Don't do it unless you get multiple opinions from Dr.s
I lost 25 lbs. in 5 days lost sense of smell and taste. I have to gulp food and drinks or it shoots out my nose, bending over a water fountain for a drink is near impossible. It was almost a year before I could drink anything carbonated. Now I over spice/salt everything just to taste it.

I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea in 1999. I would stop breathing more than 90 times an hour. One obvious symptom is loud snoring. Another not so obvious symptom is not having dreams as your body never makes it into a REM state. I was introduced to the CPAP machine and my doctor mentioned surgery as a possible alternative with a 50% probability of success. I was not fat and obesity is usually a factor with sleep apnea so he was not sure it would help in my case.

I had the uvuloplasty done by him which entailed removing the tonsils and uvula and sewing back the sides of my throat to make the opening for breathing as wide as possible. I had unbelievable pain for 7 days and on the 8th day the pain went away completely. No CPAP and no more snoring and I started dreaming again.

There are several different surgical procedures that are used and the ones for obese individuals are the most severe and will take the longest to recover. Surgeons as a whole tend not to mention complications or recovery times. With me the 7 days of pain was trivial compared to having to be hooked up to a CPAP air pump while sleeping for the remainder of my life. It is important to find a surgeon who has a lot of experience with any given procedure as the risk of problems is far lower.

Something else that was a factor with me was a lot of nasal congestion that was ascribed to allergies. Turned out I was allergic to wheat flour (known since 1700 as bakers' disease) and after cutting out all foods containing wheat my sinuses cleared up in days. Fortunately there are a lot of "gluten free" labeled products on the market so avoiding wheat flour is not difficult.

I had sleep apnea two years ago and dropping the pounds got rid of it.  Started eating right and daily exercise.  Went from 250 to 175 in 11 months.  Feels like I'm getting younger now.