This court case involving the founder and his last technology startup is a worry.
http://courts.state.de.us/opinions/download.aspx?ID=164190
His last ‘micro’ technology startup was supposed to produce tiny fuel cells.
From the judgement:
“Unfortunately, the technology was never perfected, the
parties made competing moves to claim the intellectual property, feelings
were hurt, bids were spurned, and our cell phones are still fueled by
batteries.”
I’ll look into all of your suggestions. Thanks!
That sounds potentially believable - compare it to ProVent which uses purely mechanical valves in a thing that sticks on your nose. They’ve presented at my local sleep apnea support group, and they say that while it’s not going to take a 40 AHI apnea patient down to <5 AHI like a CPAP would, it might take you down to 10-15, which is a lot better than what you get if you won’t wear a CPAP, and it’s also convenient for travel.
Basically the ProVent lets the air in when you breathe in, and only lets part of it out when you breathe out, which gives enough excess pressure to keep your throat from collapsing, or a least as much as it would without it.
I keep meaning to try the things, but haven’t done it yet; I find nasal-pillow masks to fit well, and don’t need a chin-strap or full-face mask, so it’s only the hoses that are annoying. On the other hand, my CPAP needs very little pressure to knock my AHI down to about 0.1, so maybe this would work for me. But I’ve got a weird throat; I snored loudly even when I was young and thin, though my wife says it wasn’t an apnea snore until I was about 50. And CPAP hoses are less annoying than constantly being shaken to stop my snoring :- )
Sometimes you want to crash at a friend’s place after a late night. Sometimes you want to go camping. Sometimes the airline loses your luggage. Sometimes you just want to be able to travel without having to lug the bloody thing around everywhere.
And–assuming it actually works, which is looking doubtful at this point–being small and light enough to hang from your nose without straps or hoses is a huge selling point, and it might not be possible to achieve that with the lower energy density of rechargeable cells.
I like the idea of Kickstarter, but with things like this and Solar Roadways, I’m reminded how badly people have bought into the myth of The Big Idea. (It’s closely related to the myths of The Brilliant Startup and Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaire.) Sometimes, the great idea isn’t well thought out, or looks good on paper, but in practice doesn’t really improve on anything.
Also, aren’t they going to need FDA approval? Probably not the same standard as a drug, but probably not cheap.
Seriously? If so, fuck this junk.
The FDA does regulate medical devices, but there’s probably some way of dodging that. Maybe if you sell it as an “anti-snoring aid” rather than a treatment for sleep apnea.
Machines are capable of logging this information. The person I know who actually uses it doesn’t have a memory card in the slot, and the others don’t seem to ever need to report into anyone to see whether it was effective. Basically, if you tell your doctor you don’t use it then you lose your driver’s license and if you just put it in your closet and forget about it then no one ever asks. I’m sure this varies by jurisdiction, but that’s how it is in Ontario.
I use a CPAP and the process of getting it was extremely confusing.
I went to the sleep lab and had the absolute worst night of sleep of my life with their machine. It triggered my asthma.
The aide who administered the test was super nice and the only reason I continued to think about getting a CPAP was how he came in the morning after the test to remove all the monitoring equipment and asked so earnestly if I had a followup appointment to get a CPAP. He was worried about me.
I waited months to get it; the doctor was not really clear on how I went about it. I finally got in touch with the company that sold the machines and a nurse came over to demo it for me and help me select a mask. I could not believe how much nicer the home machine was than the test machine.
I don’t love it, but I like how I get to sleep more quickly with it. My husband - who was the main reason I didn’t want to get it, thinking it would be a total turnoff - is the reason I continue to wear it. He loves it because I don’t snore and he sleeps better!
Having used an actual machine, I cannot see this device doing the job at all. And yes, they the doctor does look at the data that the machine collects in order to adjust the settings. There is a certain range of pressure the machine will work within and auto-adjust throughout the night, but the doctor has to order a change in that range of pressure settings.
Mine has a data card and a modem. The modem reports whether I used the machine each night to the company that provided the machine, who report my use to the insurance company. (If I don’t use it enough, they’ll stop paying for supplies, but I use it religiously.) The data card I give to my doctor periodically, and I check my own progress using Sleepyhead, which is free software that reads the data from a few different types of machines. This way if it looks like things have changed, I can call my doctor and he asks to see my card. (It helps that my doctor is a hot shot in sleep medicine, I imagine - my previous doctor wasn’t so interested in my excessive daytime sleepiness and suggested I drink more coffee. It turns out I was also having central apneas, which I found after the old doctor’s office closed suddenly and I had to find someone new).
The right fit is really important. It’s good if you can find a doctor who has the masks on-site to try them on right in front of them. Even better is a sleep test involving different masks. A sleep neurologist seems to be the best specialist for sleep apnea.
It took me a while to get used to mine, but it makes a HUGE difference.
Ouch, Stomach sleeping is tough when you have a mask.
I use Sleep apnea and COPD - learn about symptoms and treatment | ResMed
I like it, a lot. Head circumference doesn’t matter as much. It’s really minimalist. I also turn a lot, and this one doesn’t seem to come undone as much. Also, the air comes out from both sides, so the stream of air coming out isn’t as powerful.
This helps A LOT. Especially if you toss or turn at night.
I actually took a big key ring, put the hose through it, then attached about 75 cm of really stretchy elastic to the key ring, then the elastic to a hook on the wall above me. The ribbon elastic, like the kind used for some hair-bands, works really well. You can get it at a craft/sewing store.
This lets the hose kinda bounce a little and reduces drag on the mask. I don’t have the hose totally suspended, just mostly, so only like a few inches touch the pillow. Having the hose in the ring lets the hose splay out more if I need it to (like when I decide to sleep in the middle of the bed because my husband isn’t in it and I can). With this set up, if I switch from laying on one side to the other side, or back to a side, the hose doesn’t pull the mask off and the hose doesn’t get caught on the side of the pillow or a cat.
This one is indiegogo. I think that kickstarter requires a working prototype.
They have regulatory approval as one of their steps.
Huh, that’s a good point, I didn’t really twig to this point in their rewards:
$199USD Featured
Emerald + 120 Airings
You will receive: • A voucher that can be exchanged for a 120 day supply of Airings (when they become available)
Here is the only actual product they are promising:
When you go to so much trouble to explicitly not promise a product, perhaps you don’t believe in yourself much…
A “working prototype” doesn’t meant that it actually functions as advertised, though. It just means you push a button and there’s a whirring noise and something happens. There are working protos for solar roadway tiles, but they’re still a terrible idea. Kind of like the following that all have prototypes: hoverboards, rings of power, Ewe Boll movies, and an “ecological” “non-toxic” lava lamp… made with carbon tetrachloride.
Oh, and to everyone dreading a sleep-study, if you live in a major metro area, you probably can find a lab that does home sleep studies! They give you a 10 minute run-through of the equipment, send you home and let you sleep in your own bed.
It’s basically a battery pack on your stomach attached to some bands that measure respiration (lung expansion), an oxygenation sensor, and some tubes to tape to your nose.
And if you have a sd-card enabled machine, you can use SleepyHead to read your info without going to the doctor. It’s not really useful if you’re not a sleep therapist, but it’s cool to see the pretty graphs.
I’ve been using Provent for about 8 months now and it works great for me; though admittedly my sleep apnea was rated by my doctors as mild to medium. Before that I was using a dental device that advanced my lower jaw. Provent actually works better than that (again, for me).
Anyway, instead of putting money into the development of a speculative device that hasn’t been approved, you could spend about $60-$70 to try Provent for a month.
(On a side note, the dental device, after years of use, seems to have resulted in me having a slight underbite instead of an overbite.)
Wow - sounds like someone did a bad job of writing and implementing the regulations.
And this from the same government that brought us a ban on pit bulls (not including a definition of pit bulls) and a ban on sushi (to be fair, this one lasted about a week before it was repealed, but passing a law and then repealing it the next week because it was stupid doesn’t speak well of legislative competence). A friend used to joke that our premier was a bit like those kids who say “I’m just going to punch my fist like this and if you run into it, it’s not my problem.” except replace “punch my fist” with “sign my name” and “if you run into it” with “if a law shows up in front of me.”
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, Andrew! Your disappointment has been noted.
