This has to be a rare one.

Short story: My brother has terrible OSA. He said "no way" to CPAP and underwnet the full AWFUL surgery (uvuala, tongue, jaw, etc). Several months later, lots of pain, ...the surgeries were a FLOP. No real improvement in number of apnea episodes during sleep study. Uggghhhh. Now his choice: trach or CPAP. He has given in and tried the CPAP. BUT...

He has an aritifcial tear duct (from other surgeries, long story). Problem now is air blows through the tear duct tube, inflates his eyelid, etc and essentially is not going to work out. He seems to have terrible doctor support (in Salem Ore) so I am going to this board. (A tear duct tube connects from nasal area to eye to drain excess tears. He has no natural tear duct in that eye.)

First, anyone know anything about CPAP w/ aritificial tear duct?? ANY other options, ideas to suggest. He REALLY wants to avoid a trach as you can imagine. (In fact, I believe he will give up, and "live with" severe OSA...which we know is not a good choice.) For what its worth I am a successful CPAP user myself.

Hi mnsleep, Welcome to Apnea Board!

This sounds like a rare problem. I hope someone who has similar issues can respond, but my guess is that not many people who have an artificial tear duct are using CPAP.

I did a fairly extensive search on the Internet and really couldn't find anything useful for you. I would go to the doctor who put in the artificial duct and tell him/her of the CPAP issues - if they aren't competent, it might be worth it to make a trip to a larger city with better doctors.

Before he gets the trach, check out this page, which ConnCarl has suggested in the past:

http://www.peaceful-river.com/osa/index.htm

Hopefully, others with more experience can chime in on this problem.

Hi mnsleep

This is my first post. several years ago I had a problem with dry eye after a corneal transplant surgery the eye doctor put in Plugs to keep what tears I had on
the eye these are removable. It might give your friend a place to check for a solution.

Bless You
Ron Migs