Reclaim a Better Night’s Sleep

There is nothing like a good night’s sleep to help you feel refreshed and ready for what the day will bring. But when your sleep is continually interrupted, that refreshed feeling is allusive.

Sleep apnea is a condition where the upper airway becomes blocked or partially blocked, causing the sleeper to wake up to breathe. The cycle of restricted airflow, waking, falling back to sleep, then waking again continues throughout the night. This cycle stops the individual from sleeping soundly and prevents vital organs from getting sufficient oxygen. Untreated, sleep apnea can lead to fatigue, headaches, irritability and other more serious health issues.

John Zubiena had suffered from sleep apnea for nearly 20 years. “Without really understanding why, I would wake up and start my day, not feeling rested,” he explains. Once he was diagnosed, John tried various remedies, but they never really worked.

Eventually he heard about Inspire®, a highly regarded, minimally invasive surgical alternative to stop sleep apnea. He researched the procedure, but initially, his health insurance wouldn’t authorize it.

Zubiena’s experience was that health insurance companies don’t approve Inspire for sleep apnea until a patient demonstrates that they have exhausted all other remedies without success. This includes using a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) device and, if that doesn’t work, trying a special dental device designed to assist breathing while asleep. These methods were unsuccessful for Zubiena. Eventually, after a four-year effort, he qualified for the Inspire procedure.

Last year, Zubiena became a patient of Jason Van Tassel, MD, a Washington Township Medical Foundation (WTMF) ENT and otolaryngology physician, who performs the minimally invasive procedure. Though Inspire has been in use for more than 10 years, recent surgical refinements have increased both the efficacy and the popularity of the procedure. Inspire currently shows a 74% success rate in reducing sleep apnea.

“Inspire has been life changing,” Zubiena notes. “I wake up less tired and much more refreshed—as one should after a good night’s sleep. For me, it certainly has been worth the effort to get insurance approval.”

The two-hour outpatient surgical procedure involves placing a miniature computing device (CPU) under the skin in the chest area. A nerve stimulator from the CPU is connected internally to some of the branches that control tongue protrusion. When the patient initiates a breath, it is detected by a sensor lead that communicates with the CPU. It then sends a signal to the tongue to move it out of the way, alleviating the obstruction, while at the same time coordinating with the patient’s natural breathing cycle. The net effect is that the obstructive sleep apnea is alleviated.

Zubiena uses an external device similar to a computer mouse to start, pause or stop the sensor from running. He starts the device when he goes to bed and turns it off in the morning. It can be paused during the night if he gets up and then restarted. It’s totally under his control.