Anyone heard of this new procdure... wonder if it really works?


New Procedure Offers New Hope To Cure Sleep Apnea

By Keisha Grant

(NBC News) - Have trouble sleeping at night? Maybe your snoring is loud enough to keep you and everyone else in the house awake? Now there's a new FDA-approved procedure that may finally get you a good night's rest. It's for snorers and sleep apnea sufferers, and it's available right now.

The loud rumble of a snore is the last thing you want to hear when you're trying to sleep at night. It was enough to drive one husband and wife apart.

Lucy Dombrowski recalls, "We couldn't even sleep together. It was really nasty. I could not have a good night's sleep because of him."

Ted Dombrowski adds, "Oh the snoring was horrendous. I'd wake myself up in the middle of the night."

He was also waking up exhausted. Besides snoring, Ted suffers from mild sleep apnea, a highly underdiagnosed condition that causes you to stop breathing sporadically throughout the night.
If left untreated, it can increase your risk of heart attack, stroke, and high blood pressure.

Dr. Kevin Krebsbach explains, "It's kind of like running your car on low oil. It won't break down today or tomorrow, but it won't last to a hundred thousand miles. So things start happening earlier in your life if you have sleep apnea."

But there's a new FDA-approved procedure to stop mild to moderate sleep apnea and snoring. It's called the pillar procedure.

Three tiny pillars are placed in the back of the throat. They work as a support for tissue that stretches and relaxes when you're asleep.

Dr. Krebsbach says, "If you think of a roof as a sheet in the wind, and vibrating and collapsing this stiffens. It's similar to battens on a sale in a sail boat."

In the past, a painful surgery was the only option. The pillar procedure's done right in the office and only takes a matter of minutes to perform.

Ted remembers, "I took the plunge. I was nervous and come to find out it wasn't one tenth as bad as I thought it could possibly be."

Now Ted says he's 80 percent cured. As a result he has more energy to work on projects around the house and his wife has come back to bed. Lucy says, "It was a good decision to have done. I'd recommend it to anybody."

The pillar procedure is 80 to 90 percent effective at treating snoring and it works 50 to 60 percent of the time with sleep apnea. It's being done nationwide.

To find a doctor in your area, visit www.restoremedical.com/pillar