Me not Healthy: Always Tired (Part 6)

I think enough has happened that would allow me to give an update to this particular arc. Last time I left the specialist needing to get the specialized mouth guard called a Thornton Adjustable Positioner (TAP) 3.

For those of you who forgot or didn't read the last post, here's how it works. Basically my problem is that my jaw falls onto my throat when I sleep, causing me to choke, wake up and ruin my sleep. The mouth guard prevents this by having a hook on the top piece that locks into a slot in the bottom piece. This prevents my jaw from really moving and crushing things. Also to kill two birds with one stone, it also prevents me from grinding my teeth at night because my teeth can't even touch each other now.

It comes with a key so you can adjust the position, hence the name.

But as anyone who has gotten any form of oral appliance should know, first, they need to take a mold of your teeth.

It's not bad, it's um, unpleasant? I'm really not sure how else to describe it. Basically, the technician takes a tray of goo and crams as much of her hands into your mouth as possible so she can fit said tray into your mouth. Then the two of you sort of sit there in awkward silence as the goo begins to set. You're probably going to breath through your nose so you don't swallow excess junk by accident. Repeat twice and you're good to go.

Unless you move. If you move even the slightest bit during the procedure the mold is no good and they have to repeat it. You're also probably going to have goo all over your face making it look like you vomited goo.

All that work to get this ugly thing.

After the two weeks it takes them to make the mouth guard from the molds I finally get to try them.

And I barely use them.

Seriously, if I'm not going to get at least 5 hours of sleep that night I don't even bother wearing it. It's such a pain to place and remove from my mouth.

It's like I'm purposely not sleeping. I have things that are keeping me up at night.

So yeah, hard to say if this thing is really helping at the moment.

I'll sleep when I'm dead.

But I can share some details based on the nights I have used the appliance. Firstly, it's not a good idea to cough when the mouth guard is locked in place. Believe it or not, your jaw actually moves significantly when you cough and now that it's locked in place you just end up performing a half-hearted cough that doesn't clear your throat and hurts your mouth.

Second, I'm not sure if anyone else reads through my comments but what Nurse Myra said is true (also I can't link to your blog or view your profile as of this post, Blogger error?). The mouth guard does trap a significant amount of saliva during your sleep. I mean, I guess you'll never wake up with a dry mouth again, but it's also REALLY gross taking it out in the morning when you drool all over your chin and there's a puddle in the sink.

So attractive.

Hopefully this is the cure to my sleep apnea. But unless I start using it more consistently I highly doubt that. I'm seriously running out of options, if this isn't a solution, what else could be? I am not going for corrective jaw surgery. Recovery takes way too long.

I really hope this works out.