Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Snoring

Episode Date: September 11, 2017

Dr. Sydnee and Justin mark the 200th episode of Sawbones with a topic that's a real snooze: The history of snoring! (Get it?) Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, Saw Bones, a Meryl Tour of Misguided medicine. I'm your co-host Justin McAroy and I'm Sydney McAroy I said hey Justin congratulations looks like we made it we dig congratulations to you too

This is episode 200 of some bones the podcast so you wouldn't think you know your body doesn't even have 200 parts. It's amazing that we managed to do 200 episodes. No, I think it's really just a testament to how much ridiculous stuff we've done in medical history. Like not us, not you and me personally, we didn't make this stuff up, but as humans, you know. I've made a few of them up over the years Just sort of see did them on the internet. No get rich quicks. Yeah, but not on our show my only worries we seek to provide truth In the form of entertainment my only worry said is that this week's episode is gonna be a bit of snooze Is that where is that how you're going with it? That's what I'm doing. That's what you're doing That's my thing this week. Okay. That's okay. Well how you're going with it? That's what I'm doing for you. That's what you're doing. That's my thing this week.

Okay. Okay. Well, I'll go with it. Justin's trying to hint to you that we're going to talk about snoring this week. I'm succeeding in hinting. Yes. I think. That's true.

Trying to cleverly hint. How about that? Snoring. How did we decide on this one? We were talking about CPAT machines, right? Yes. Yeah, that's right. And so I also, I will talk about a obstructive sleep apnea, what that is and kind of, because that is closely linked to snoring, and there have been some creative ways of addressing both. And I think this is also appropriate to do for our 200th episode because as I looked back, a lot of people have suggested this.

Some people have, some of the people I'm going to think have actually even suggested it more than once. They're just desperate to hear about it. That's the Solbona's community. This is a collaborative effort between you and us listener. Solbona's at maximumfund.org by the way is the email address. We don't say it enough. We don't say it enough. We don't say it enough.

Make sure you put, you know, topic suggestion and whatever you want to suggest in the subject line. And you could be like one of these people who's about to get thanked. Thank you to James and Karenna and Lindsey and Dora and Grace and Brad and Casey and Erica and Jennifer and Andy and Tamara and Michael for suggesting snoring sleep apnea or some combination of the two said they waited long enough. So Justin, do you know what snoring is? Uh, gosh, I'm pretty straight forward.

I know we have to do that. Is it? Yeah, it really is. It's hard. I mean, when you breathe in, why are you sleeping? And because your nose has too much snnot in it and makes a sound. Okay. That's, I mean, yes, yes, that is an example of a reason why you snore. So that's, that's not, you're not wrong. Generally speaking, snoring is a sound made while sleeping that would

indicate there's some sort of resistance or turbulence in your upper airway, which could be caused by snott. There are other reasons that could, you know, there are other things that could block the airway. It knows it's too small. It's all goofy, gagawier to bear. That's my problem. Too small and it's... My nose is too small. You offer some hot, finesse to the city, say, sinny, get this new full of these and she says, I smell nothing. No, I smell things, but my nostrils are very small and they're hard to breathe through. If I try to breathe through my nose only,

it's very difficult. I like your small nose holes. Thank you. But I'm explaining to you why. I do occasionally snore, I know. Oh, yeah. Thanks, honey. A little bit more occasionally.

OK, you do sometimes, too. Actually, I'm going to stay up to late with reading those poor row novels, and you always fall asleep before me. Almost half of people snore, about 45% of people snore sometimes, not all the time, but about 45% of people at some point or other snore. And have you ever noticed that there,

that even though the numbers are pretty much in favor of a lot of people snoring, what, well, what, okay, you said sometimes, who, who does all of that? 25% snore all the time. Everyone knows that some people get a rep for like, it's not just like snoring or not snoring. It's not binary.

Some people get a rep for like devastating snoring. Yes, well, and usually, and we kind of get into this, people who have devastating snoring, there could be another problem going on. There could be other issues. Most people who snore aren't like devastating snores. But I've known some. When I was working at joystick, I roomed with a guy who snored so bad that while he was mid-snews, I turned on the loudest alarm that my phone had until I saw he was

efficiently woken up and then quickly fell asleep while he was trying to get back to sleep. I had to create sleep windows. Self-defense. Yeah. To fall asleep. Some risk factors for snoring. We tend to be at high risk for snoring as we get older because the muscles that kind of support our airwake will get weaker over time and allow them to kind of collapse on themselves,

which creates some resistance. One of these things will find something that gets better as you get older, but we just haven't cracked it yet. Wine? Fine. Sure. I do know there's a lot of old people seem to like wine, sure. Obesity is a risk factor because some of the adipose tissue or like fatty tissue can deposit around your airways again, making it heavier and harder to support. Things like sleeping position, you're more likely to snore if you sleep on your back.

That doesn't mean everybody sleeps on their back snores, but it's more likely to snore. And in many cases, some of these things that I mentioned are also risk factors for obstructive sleep apnea, which does cause severe snoring. What that basically means is that you have so much resistance to airflow. Your airways are collapsing at night to such an extent that you're actually not getting oxygen properly throughout the night. So you're either having episodes like apnic episodes where you stop breathing, or you're having episodes of hypoxia, low oxygen, where you didn't completely stop breathing, but your oxygen dropped really low because you couldn't get a lot through your collapsed

airway. That's not good either. And it leads to you being incredibly sleepy all day long. Because you couldn't get that good oxygen that you ride crazy. Well, every time your brain isn't getting enough oxygen, it wakes you up a little bit so that you'll breathe and get oxygen. But every time you wake up a little bit, you disturb your sleep cycles, and you never really get that, exactly. You never get good REM and you never get good deep stage for sleep. So as a result, it's basically like your sleep deprived, even if you felt like you were

asleep for a long time. And it stills your dreams. And that, what, yeah, it does. Think about that. All your dreams, all your dreams. And you, you and you you would know if somebody had sleep apnea If you've ever heard anybody not just snore, but kind of do that choky gaspie scary sound in the middle of the night That person probably needs checked out for sleep apnea Did you know some animal snore really dogs can snore lions can snore our cat weasers when she sleeps Yeah, I think our cat has obstructive sleep apnea though Dogs can snore, lions can snore. Our cat weezes when she sleeps. Yeah. Not really snoring.

I think our cat has obstructive sleep apnea though. I worry about that. She does, she's never tired. Yes, but she's also a cat, so. Yeah, it's really nice. Snoring has been documented since ancient times. A lot of what, I mean, that would be weird.

If they're like a few hundred years ago, we'll start snoring. We discovered snoring. What? No, but and a lot of what is written, when you start to read papers about snoring, a lot of it is citing like great works of literature, like epic poems and things like that,

where it's like we mentioned so and so, it was also a terrible snorer. The Greeks and the Romans actually, they associated it with a couple different things. One, it was just a good proof that somebody was sleeping. You know they're sleeping, they're snoring. Although they knew that not everybody who sleeps snores, and then they even suggested that sometimes people did it deliberately. Sure.

Just to be really rude. Just show off how good they were sleeping. I'm such a good sleeper watching me snore, but it was generally associated with kind of like uncouth behavior. It does seem to be, it's used a lot. I feel like in media to represent somebody who's like slavently, you know? That association is ancient. I mean, it's not, it's not true.

It's just something that has stuck around for a really long time. Some of the things could be, some of the things were grounded in some actual facts. So it was thought that if somebody snored, it was a sign that maybe they ate too much, especially right before they went to bed, so like a big dinner or something, they kind of were gorging themselves, or that they drank too much alcohol, somebody who was drunk. These actually are risk factors for snoring. So while they certainly have nothing to do with being slovenly or on coos, if you snore, eating and drinking

too much could make you snore. It was also though, seen because I think of these kind of behaviors of like eating too much, drinking too much, it was seen as like a sign of amorality or like depravity. You would use that to describe somebody like a snorer as like a and and they snore. Right. Which obviously is not true. And then annoying though. And I think people do project. I can understand why you would project intentionality, intent, I guess, on to snores. It feels, if you're somebody who's been kept awake by a snorer, it can feel very personal.

Yeah, I think that's true. I think that's true. I remember many, many nights, my dad from downstairs waking me up with his snoring and feeling like, yeah. Your reaction's always like, how could you? How could you do this? They also noted some some more true factors like laying on your back. There's a risk factor for snoring. If your neck was thicker, they would talk about people

with thicker necks. Yeah. And that is true. But then they also described that you could sometimes see snoring. So who knows what they were talking about? And Japanese cartoons, yes. The little like bubbles. Yeah, those are snob bubbles. Ew. That's what they are. That make them all less cute. Yeah.

I prefer the giant drop of sweat. Yeah. Yeah. It indicates stress or anxiety or nervousness. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I really wanted plenty to give me Plenty of the Elder, to give me a lot of good suggestions about snoring.

He didn't. The only association I could find with Plenty and snoring is that it was actually recorded by Plenty of the Younger, by his nephew Plenty of the Younger, that when Mount Vesuvius was erupting the night before he actually, you know, because he went on a rescue mission, we've talked about this before, we went on a rescue mission to save people in Pompeii. And the night before he died of inhaling noxious gases, he slept and they went to wake him

suddenly and they knew he was in a deep sleep because he was snoring loudly. They woke him up and told him, hey, you know, the volcanoes, it's getting bad. I'm going to go. And I bring up Pliny in part because why not? We love Pliny here. But also because I thought a little news break, special sobbing news break. As many of you have been so kind as to tweet at us or post on our Facebook page, they may have found Plenty's Remains.

Now, it actually, as I was reading about it, they actually were possibly found back in the early 20th century by Janero Matron. And he discovered these remains in the location that fit Plenty of the Younger's description of of where plenty of the elder would have died. And based on the fact that he had this ornately decorated sword and all this jewelry on, he theorized this must have been someone of a higher class. So this could very well be plenty. And at the time other archaeologists were like,

plenty would not wear all that jewelry. You don't know plenty like we know plenty. He would not wear all those bangles, that's know plenty like we know plenty Yeah, he would not wear those bangles. That's not plenty Well, Matron kind of said well forget you guys then he sold all the jewels Back then the the law the rules were a little looser on what you could do with that stuff right so he sold all the jewels He tossed some of the bones back in the ground cool He sent the skull to a tiny museum and said here you keep the skull I'm done with I'm done with you people, whatever.

You're a comicaly small museum. Well, now we know that someone of Plenty's rank, he was from the equestrian class, probably would have worn all that fancy stuff. And we have the tools now to try and maybe pinpoint exactly when and when this part this skull you know when this came from what what exact period and by examining the teeth we can tell what kind of foods they ate and things and this might pinpoint the place they lived and if it's the same as Plenty's we could reasonably deduce that this may well be plenty of the elder so anyway this might be his skull there's a crowdfunding

effort I think they need like 10,000 euros or something. Okay. There's a crowdfunding effort to try to raise the money to do the science to figure this out. Oh man. I hope they can do it. I hope they can too. I don't know. Just so we know. Yeah. Plenty of the elder might be his head. I'm pretty sure he's not alive. No, I mean, it's his skull. Like it's there's no doubt. This is not it. This is not to figure out could he still be alive? But could we drive it world him? Well, if we needed someone to be wrong about modern day things We find any mosquitoes nearby trapped in amber that may have Anyway, so so there you go. There's your update on plenty of the elder everybody was dying to know the latest new zombie of the elder

Still bad the Egyptians had a unique solution for snoring. They had these very uncomfortable looking wooden pillows. They actually kind of look like these. I love you sweetie. You can't have wooden pillows. Well, they kind of look like they're like headstands. They're like human headstands. Literally. It's like a wooden stand with like a curved part that you lay your head on.

And it could be like very ornate. You could decorate it. And then you just sleep on that. And it raises your head up really high, which would make it harder to snore because of the position. You're elevating your head quite a bit. Okay. Which elevating your head, like sleeping on several pillows or a wedge pillow or something like that could help with snoring. So that was, I guess, I don't know. It seems incredibly uncomfortable. Yeah, it seems like a wild leap to make from like more pillows to wood. Like, but I guess it didn't have a lot of pillows back then.

I don't know. Those were four pillows were embedded in feathers and stuff. It seemed very stately, maybe. No, maybe. Shakespeare described what seems to be like an early account of sleepbapnea in fallstaff in Henry IV. He talks about him snoring loudly and needing to catch his breath while asleep.

Ah, so that's probably an early description of ended invented sleep apnea. Well, thanks everybody for listening. She shakes, she's written invented. Just happened. He invented lots of words though, like sleep apnea. No, no, he didn't, no, he did not invent sleep apnea. Please stop misinforming the public. Bapnea. Please stop misinforming the public. Dickens wrote also about what we kind of think of as sleep apnea today in the posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club. He wrote about Joe, who snore very loudly and was obese and was tired all the time. And so this was probably a description of somebody who had sleep apnea. This led to the reason I mentioned this is simply because it led to a term that I still sometimes

here use today, which is pickwikian. Pickwikian, okay? To describe patients with this constellation of symptoms, they could be pickwikian, meaning that they have sleep apnea, perhaps it has to do with something we call obesity, hyperventilatory syndrome, where it has to do with the weight of the tissues of the neck, compressing the airways. So, anyway, that's a term that was first used in describing some of the original cases in medical literature of sleep apnea, like actual medical cases back in the late 1800s.

And like I said, it persists I still here physicians refer to patients as pickwikian to this day. Now Sid, we've talked a lot about snoring and what it actually is, but we have not given any solic... I want to fix it. Let's fix it in the modern era. Well, Justin, we're gonna fix it. Okay, good. But first we're gonna head to the billion department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines,

the ask you lift my car before the mouth. Sydney, let's fix yawning. So, and as I mentioned, late 1800s, we get like some of the first... I said yawning. Right. I meant snoring. Yeah.

That was a test and you failed. I did fail. Dr. Sidney McAroy doesn't know the difference between yawning and snoring. No, I just learned... You mean that's true with your medical care. I've just learned what I need to listen to you and what I don't. Okay, I know that was a time you should have listened to. As I mentioned in the late 1800s, we had some like actual medical case descriptions of

what we would now call sleep apnea, what was then called more like pick wake syndrome. In the early 1900s, we didn't really know much of what to do about it yet. Other than some of the things that the ancient Greek Simmerumins and everybody were telling us to do, which was like, don't eat too much. Don't get drunk. Try. Span new to your pet.

Just sleep on your side. Yeah, they didn't really tell us that. That one. So we made- We only had like eight dogs back then, so it wasn't big profit. Make as many as you can. We don't want dogs. Please, why you can. I want dogs. Please. Please. Please. Put on some sexy music

for your dogs. Please. So we can all have dogs instead of just Jerry. It's really interesting. As a side note, you don't get a ton of treatments for snoring up until like this point in history and sleep apnea too. And a lot of it has to do with like as you read, people didn't live on such rigid schedules. So like if you weren't getting enough sleep, you just like slept more or like you, or you're like you, they would keep really weird sleep schedules. So like they would wake up after four hours of sleep and go do something and then sleep some more after that because it, you know, people weren't running the nine to five. I know they all died at like 27 years old or something, but like, it does sound pretty

good. It doesn't have anything to do. No, I'll see. Again, the life span was skewed by an increase in mortality under the age of two. So there were people who lived a long time. Cherry thoughts with, anyway. No, I'm just saying it's not that, not everybody died in their 20s. Anyway, the point is our schedule in the modern era necessitated that we sleep at night

and stay awake all day. And so as the industrial age comes upon us, we see more and more weird devices to help you get sleep and lots of solutions for various sleep problems, you know, whether it be insomnia or grinding your teeth or snoring. It's interesting that some people just sort of default to certain times that they, some people just seem to be people who like to go to sleep later, like to wake up, like they're just put together that way. Just has to do their circadian rhythms and probably their release of melatonin and whatnot. So anyway, in the early 1900s, we made a bunch of weird devices to try to help with snoring.

So you see like some of these really look like medieval torture devices where like your arms and chest are like strapped really tightly to you. And then you can't breathe very deeply. And that was thought to help with snoring. And sometimes there would be a ball attached to the back of it so that if you try to roll over on your back, it would hurt a lot. There's another one that has like a dial right in the middle of your back. So again, it's like a sort of like a shoulder harness with like this big metal dial in the middle. Like it hurt even sleeping bad. So we decided to make it like as bad as humanly possible. Well, because they knew you would likely to snore more if you laid on your back. It was

like here are things that will make it very uncomfortable. Yeah. If you lay on your back, some of these attached to you with like, there was one that would hold your mouth and lips open, sort of like, um, when you, if you go to the dentist and you got to get this thing, there were attackers that hold it like something like that that would hold it all open. And then it was attached to a string that you tied around your neck to keep it in place. That like choking hazard to the max, right? Yeah, I mean, these, there was another one that was like sort of like a wide flat kazoo that you would just keep in your mouth and you had to breathe through.

And then they noted that if you flipped it around the other way, it would make a lot of noise. I don't know what the purpose of that was. Anyway, you can look up early 1900s anti-snoring devices and they're horrifying. And I don't know who came up with any of them. And I don't know why. Just one guy. But really, it looks like they look like torture devices. It wasn't really, it's funny because like we obviously had this sort of interest in this stuff, but it really wasn't until the 1960s that anybody started actually studying it. To do real science. Yes.

To do real science on it. So that's when people started to try to define what is specifically when the snoring, when is it indicative of something maybe worse like sleep apnea. You do, it seems a little odd, but like we don't want to give them too much crap because like in the medical disorder power rankings, like there are probably a few things we need to bang out before we got around the story. Like, hey, I hate snoring. Yeah, I have polio.

Can we like focus on that please? That's fair. And it is good to make a distinction that, yes, I don't think that just snoring necessarily needed to be high on the list. Fair. Now, sleep apnea is a whole other matter. And so we actually started studying the 1960s

and the initial studies that they did to try to figure out how often are we missing this concluded that it was incredibly rare. They did a study in the US and found no one in their study group that had it, like not one. The UK study they did, which included like over a thousand men, found like three cases. And the authors actually, they said in one of their papers, we actually think it does not exist in Scotland at all. What? Right. So I don't know if it was our diagnostic test. That was probably part of it. Part of it was our criteria for who had sleep apnea who doesn't. Our understanding of what the disorder was. But as time went on, we developed

better tests. How do we figure out if somebody has sleep apnea and all that kind of thing? And now we know that it's actually fairly common. Yeah. So sleep apnea has, it's not a new thing. We just didn't diagnose it for a really long time. A lot of people I know have the masks. I think it was hard to add. Yes.

So it's way more common than we ever thought. And that's one of the big things about sleep apnea is it probably has been under diagnosed for a long time. I think currently it's way more, people physicians are way more aware of it and more likely to ask about it. And I think patients are more likely to come in and ask about it too. So we hear about it more. In addition to some of the things I mentioned for sleep apnea, just so you know some of the

other risk factors, we talked about age, we talked about obesity. This, just your craniofacial structure, just a structure of your head and neck could put you at higher risk. Bigger or thicker, like a small, like a small area in the back of your throat, like just a smaller area back there, It could be a higher risk. Smoking, alcohol consumption, sleeping on your back, family history, seem to risk. And the reason I'm talking about this is, again,

this isn't just snoring. When we're talking about sleep apnea, it's not just quality of life. People who sleep apnea that are untreated are tired. Tired, like you're not just like, oh, I'm kind of tired. I mean, they're tired all the time. And they also are at high risk for things like high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes, maybe even dementia,

complications with operations if they need anesthesia, and like they have car accidents because I can't stay with while they're driving. Right. So, and nowadays, we mainly treat sleep apnea with something called a CPAP that you have already alluded to. Yeah, it's a mask. It's a machine that blows air into your mouth, right? That's good. Yes. Continuous positive airway pressure. CPAP. So positive pressure blown into your airway to, I mean, you get oxygen that way, but the most important thing is it holds your airway open.

They also recommend, if you do, if you're diagnosed with it, that losing weight sometimes can help decreasing alcohol intake, maybe cutting back on smoking, sleeping on your side. As I said, elevating the head of your bed, there are surgeries, but they're not always helpful. It really depends on exactly what the cause is. Sometimes if your tonsils are super large and they're blocking your airway, removing them, yeah, well, sometimes. Sometimes you're moving them could fix it, but not always.

So it's not usually a first line treatment. It's usually the mask. With snoring though. With snoring. So many options. Yep. This is a whole other world. So some of these things you've probably heard of and tried before, like breath-right strips.

Sure, yeah. Have you ever used them for snoring? Absolutely. If your snoring is related to nasal congestion, like you got, like you said, snot, or something blocking your airway, Maybe they would help some. Okay. That's about it. If your snoring has anything to do with the back of your throat, it's not going to do anything.

It just works on your nose. So, if you're snoring because your allergies are really bad, maybe. Okay, good to know. Maybe. But, you know, the thing they help with most is the subjective sensation of nasal congestion. Oh, yeah. They make you feel less stuffy. Sure.

But they're safe, so you can try them. Yeah, you're the one. There are mouth guards that can be effective for some people. A lot of these, you actually have to be fitted for by a dentist. There are ones you can buy over the counter, but if you want to make sure it's the right thing, and they kind of move your jaw forward to open up the back of your airway more. That's how they work. And then there are all kinds of odd suggestions

on the internet, everything like herbal things, like peppermint oil or spiramin or vitamin C or eucalyptus, humidifiers olive oil. I saw somebody say, two raw garlic every night before you go to bed. Charming. Your partner will love that. Yeah.

Nettie pots have been suggested for this ginger. I saw a lot of suggestions that you sew a tennis ball to the back of your shirt. Like the same idea. Keep you familiar on your back. This sounds like a wild suggestion, but I once worked with a sleep specialist, a physician who specialized in sleep medicine, who would give his patients t-shirts with tennis balls sewn on the back of them. That could, that's confusing though, because if people see you in public with that, they're

just going to assume you love tennis. It's a cool new look. Yeah. There are like things like nasal sprays that almost certainly don't work for the most part. Oral dissolving strips, they usually are herbal. I have no idea why these would work. You saw somebody you're getting mad about last night.

I am. I'm getting to that. There are also things like rings that you stick up your nostrils that hold your nose open. Yeah, I had one of those. Right. And again, if it has to do with a stuffy nose, nose that might help some but if it has anything to do with anything else Yeah, this is home. I the one I had does not hold my nostrils open. It pinched my septum. Yeah, my my What's that thing called your septum? This is my septum? Yeah, this yes, that's my septum. Yes, you can't see this

Listener. I'm sorry I'm pinching it. It's the middle of your nose. Okay, but not the middle minutes That's not that's not. It's the middle of your nose. Okay, but not the middle of my nose. That's not, that's not, that's not concrete enough. The bottom, like the holes. The thing in the middle, that's the, like the thing that separates your two nostrils is the septum. Right, I know what you're saying. Yeah.

The lower septum I mean. Not the upper bridge of your nose where the optical gap goes. I mean like, a couple of things made me mad. Um, I'll start with the one that made me really mad and I'll go to the one that I think is funnier. So, there's one product I found called Nature's Right Sleep Apnea Relief Tablets. This is an herbal tablet that is supposed to work by improving the signaling between

your brain and your diaphragm. Sure. Which is one of this big muscle that is involved in many things, including like helping you breathe. And the idea is that it will regulate the amount of oxygen in your blood better. It's made of several things.

One, they're all herbal things. Lobelia, which, and these are quotes, boost respiratory wellness, time, which enhances plural activity and promotes respiratory health, and Camamiel and Cranth bark, which helps the musculoskeletal system to promote relaxation. It's a tablet, and it tells you it will cure your sleep apnea for the low low price of $45.99 cents for a month's supply. there's more than most people pay for prescription meds if they have insurance.

That's ridiculous. That will not work. It doesn't make any scientific sense. I don't know what boost respiratory wellness promotes respiratory health, enhances plural act. I don't know what any of those things are supposed to mean. And also, if you are advising people to go treat their sleep apnea with tablets instead of actual mechanisms that address

the root cause of sleep apnea, you could be killing them. So please don't take these tablets. And this is on, I think sometimes we talk about this stuff. It sounds like fragile medicine. It's on Amazon. It's just for sale and you just buy it on Amazon. And then they are urging people, they're showing pictures of people wearing CPAPs and saying, you don't want this to be you anymore.

So they're urging you not to go with the gold standard recommended medical treatment, but to go take this herbal tablet. This is unacceptable. If you want to take one of these herbal tablets before you strap on your CPAP and go to bed, okay. Eliminate. This is what's a listing on Amazon. A real retailer says, eliminates dependence on CPAP.

Eliminates it. It doesn't. I'm telling you, it doesn't. I've never used it. It doesn't. Our policing of non-drug supplements in this country is an absolute disgrace and a nightmare. It's genuinely terrifying. This is very dangerous. Don't take anything. Because sleep apnea doesn't have to be dangerous if it's treated appropriately.

And I tell patients all the time, it sounds really scary when I tell them all the things that could happen. But if you get diagnosed with a sleep study and you are treated appropriately, you can have quality of life back. Ask my dad, he's like a sleep apnea, CPAP machine evangelist. He will tell you that he got his CPAP, he felt better than he had in decades,

he lost 40 pounds and started playing basketball again and enjoyed life once more. And he sleeps with it every single night. And he is so thankful for it. So my point is don't take these stupid sleep apnea relief tablets. Go get treated for your sleep apnea. This is funnier. The orbit bio anti snore pendant. Okay. Now this has nothing to do with sleep apnea. This is just for snoring. It's a stainless steel pendant. It's just like a little pin, it's like a ring. I'm like a little steel donut on a cord.

And you wear it around your neck at night while you sleep. And it's supposed to stop you from snoring by improving the flow of energy in your body. Here's their explanation of how this works. Specialists have developed and patented a technology of applying a range of healthy energy vibrations. Frink with these a light oxygen negative ions, into the anti-snorpendent. And as human body harmonizes with the above-mentioned vibrations, anti-snorpendent is able to stabilize

and relax the respiratory system, relieve stress, calm the nervous system, strengthen the muscles, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And of course, you promote deep sound sleep without snoring. You wear it, it will work in two to four weeks. It's good for all genders, they want you to know. So don't feel like it's just for you dudes. Forever. Forever.

It's only $89.95, low low price, and can relieve, also can relieve any pain you're having as a side note. Oh really? Any pain you're having. Well, that's excellent. Just wear this. It's, it worked better at noted if you put it on the area of pain.

Dependent? Dependent. That makes you stop snoring. That also will relieve your pain or where the snoring is happening. I can't put it on my knee. Well, I guess it, once it fixes your snoring, then you can put it on your knee. Have you seen the snoring getting bad? It's back up wherever. They want you to get your money's worth you paid $90 for this worthless pendant sell it to your friend

For a dollar and it fits your snoring in two to four weeks You got to find something else to do with it sure. It's not just gonna be kicking around your house Do you want to um dunk on anybody else for you in the show? No, I think that was my... I think that was my... I think that super quick, if I think I might have sleep apnea, what should make me suspect, hey, I should go talk to the doctor about this. So some of the things that I've mentioned,

and here's what I would focus on, first of all, as you mentioned, if you're not just a snorer, but like really righteous snorer, that would be something to talk to your doctor about. Sure, some people just are snores. And if you feel great all the time and your sleep is excellent and you just happen to snore, whatever. But if you're really bad snore, especially if it's the point where it's disturbing other people maybe around you or disturbing your own sleep, or if you are told,

hey, you know what? Sometimes you stop breathing at night. I hear you gasping choke. If you have ever noticed that, if you wake up in the middle of the night, gasping or choking, like you stop breathing. Or again, if somebody in your house or your partner has said, you scare me. You sound like you stop breathing at night. Those would be big red flags. If you are excessively sleepy all day, I, again, I don't just mean like, man, it's been a long day.

I'm kind of worn out. I mean, like every time you sit down, you fall asleep. People will sleep at me and generally tell me that they are asleep when their head hits the pillow. They're falling asleep in movie theaters. They're falling asleep when they're watching TV. They fall sleeping conversation. At worst case scenario, they fall asleep in red lights when they're driving. So those would be big risk factors that I would, I would talk to your doctor about. And they can check you out for this. Cause again, this is treatable. This is totally treatable. If just not with, you know, pills and pendants, not with pills and pendants. Uh, folks, that's going to do it for us this week. We hope you have enjoyed yourself. Uh, we certainly appreciate you listening. We want to say a big thank you to the taxpayers for let us use their song medicines as the intro and outro of our program.

And I want to say a big thanks to you for listening. If you wouldn't mind if you're going to iTunes and leaving us a review there and subscribing to the show, it really does help us out. So if you give a review, saw this and say like, hey, whatever, just not whatever nice thing you was about us. I'll take anything. We're not picky. And that's going to do it for us this week, Sydney. So my name is just Macro. I'm Sydney Macro. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone, Listener Supported. and are supported.