DELAWARE. – Approximately 30 million U.S. adults are believed to have sleep apnea, but only 6 million have been officially diagnosed.
Ellen Tolbert is one of them.
“About, I want to say, close to 15 years ago, I was diagnosed with sleep apnea,” said Ellen.
Ellen would stop breathing up to 40 times in an hour while asleep and eventually had to start using a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, or CPAP, machine. She wasn’t really a fan.
“I’d wake up and throw it across the room, so I was not getting any of the benefits for it,” said Ellen. “I started getting hypertension, high blood pressure, a couple cardiac issues happened, and we now know that was a direct affect from sleep apnea, for so long.”
But after over a decade of uncomfortable sleep, she came across Inspire, a device that’s changed the sleep game for 100K people.
Dr. Vikas Batra with Beebe Healthcare said often times, the smaller, more manageable machine can be life altering.
“They feel like a completely new person; they have a lot of energy during the daytime, they feel rested,” said Dr. Batra.
The tiny device is implanted right beneath the clavicle, and a remote control is used to activate it before you go to sleep.
“When I stop breathing, the device knows I’ve done that, and it trips the charge on the electrode that’s on the tongue and that opens the airway. It’s amazing,” said Ellen.
Since she had the device implanted two years ago, Ellen said her mood has been up, she’s able to sleep through the night and she’s not being kicked out of hotel rooms on vacation, for loud snoring.
“It’s such a game changer for one’s life. I don’t dread going to bed, putting that thing on, and it’s very simple to operate and it gives me a whole lot of freedom,” said Ellen.
And with so many undiagnosed people, Dr. Batra said this month, better sleep should be a priority, and options are out there to attain it.
“Once you get the device implanted, it’s not like everything is fixed the next day; it does take a little bit of time, but people who stay with it, go through the whole process, do notice significant improvements in the quality of sleep at nighttime,” said Dr. Batra.