The ENT was very optimistic about the procudure called UPPP. (I'm not going to be putting all the technical names for all these procedures. They are all available with a simple search) I had severe apnea with and AHI of around 90. Now, if I had been my usual self and not trusted anything I was told until I could research it an verify it myself, I'd have figured out a different Plan B. I difinitely wouldn't have taken this surgeon's advice and gone ahead with a procedure that had a less than 20% chance of helping someone with apnea as severe as mine. Well, in May 2007, I went through with it.
The first clue that it may not have been a success came in the recovery room. I was still snoring and having apneas when I dozed. It seemed to clear up pretty well in a couple of weeks and I thought my sleep was improving. I soon realized, though, that my sleep was in a severe downhill spiral. The way I describe this stage of my ordeal is that before the surgery, I didn't really know that I had sleep apnea, but after....I KNEW it. My sleep got progressively worse until I was calling up and begging for the CPAP back just so I could try something to get some sleep. I was frantic. So, only 3 months after the UPPP, I knew it was a complete failure. My surgeon got very evasive with some of my questions at that point and I was scheduled for a follow-up sleep study. The result of that seemed to be identical to the first one except that either someone transcribed some of the numbers wrong or something changed fundamentally. I don't know what happened, but I've chalked it up to going to the wrong place for help.
The pulmonologist was convinced he could get me using cpap successfully, so I gave that a try again. I ended up on a series of drugs to try to help my sleep, but none worked very well. I tried weening off the drugs from time to time, but that was usually a disaster. I finally settled in with temazapam for a couple of months until I could figure out what to do. I really gave the CPAP a hard try, but it just wasn't working out. During this time, I did a lot of research on this other surgery called MMA. It is sometimes done in conjuction with a GA. The published success rate seemed pretty high. I got a referral to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. They have a very good reputation in the world for many things, so I figured that they should have someone good to help me. I was armed with a lot of questions and knowledge. Most of this after reading posts at Sleepnet.com. There is a wealth of info up there. It helped me a lot and would recommend that anyone looking for help should go looking there.
