I've had an decidedly fabulous week! - and at the end of it all I've had a cool idea - allow me to explain!
I have been thinking about how hard it is for patients with sleep disorders to get noticed by doctors. I don't ever remember any training in sleep medicine / surgery - and the fact that for about a decade I seemed to be the only one interested in sleep surgery on the NHS, there weren't many ways for people to learn about it either.
Persisting old ideas I've heard recently include:
- Sleep apnoea is just because patients let themselves get fat. All they have to do is lose weight. - FALSE
- Nocturia is only due to prostate problems, but if the prostate is normal then you have an irritable bladder. FALSE
- Sleep surgery doesn't work - FALSE - even the NICE guidelines recommend it (sometimes even before CPAP).
- If you aren't tired with sleep apnoea, you can still drive safely. FALSE - the Epworth score doesn't pick up reduced vigilance or risk of crashing.
Anyway I made a series of online questionnaires (STAMP, Snoring Loudness, STOPBANG, NOSE, Insomnia Severity index, HADS) which anyone can fill out. Your results are emailed to you with a PDF to explain the scores and what they mean. I also added a section which pointed people to information about the NICE guidelines and some videos on my YouTube channel to help people get started.
If you want to do these questionnaires - click here - lnkd.in/ecYRe3TW
The purpose was to help people turn up to their doctor with some reasonable evidence so they can be referred or treated appropriately.
That was the original idea - but some of my patients had other ideas....
5 patients saw me this week and each showed me results Before & After treatment. They filled out the questionnaires how they remembered life was like before treatment and how they were now after treatment.
Previously they were in a desperate state with severe OSA (the highest was AHI > 100), with multiple complex problems and therefore also scored highly on the questionnaires. Then they showed me their current scores - all AHI / ODI / RDI / FLI / RIP and the questionnaire results all within normal limits.
Not the original intention of these questionnaires, but they were clearly overjoyed to belong to a group of people who had reclaimed their deep refreshing sleep again.
So here (finally) is my big idea. Wouldn't it be great to have a goal to normalise the scores for 1000 sleep disordered breathing patients? I want to show that it is possible, so people have some hope again. It is so hard for sleep deprived people to feel like they will ever get out of their predicament. Showing them 1000 people who have made it might give them the motivation to stick with their CPAP, adjust that MAD, opt for that implant or surgery etc. to achieve the sleep (and life) they deserve.
Vik Veer - ENT Surgeon
I've had an decidedly fabulous week! - and at the end of it all I've had a cool idea - allow me to explain!
I have been thinking about how hard it is for patients with sleep disorders to get noticed by doctors. I don't ever remember any training in sleep medicine / surgery - and the fact that for about a decade I seemed to be the only one interested in sleep surgery on the NHS, there weren't many ways for people to learn about it either.
Persisting old ideas I've heard recently include:
- Sleep apnoea is just because patients let themselves get fat. All they have to do is lose weight. - FALSE
- Nocturia is only due to prostate problems, but if the prostate is normal then you have an irritable bladder. FALSE
- Sleep surgery doesn't work - FALSE - even the NICE guidelines recommend it (sometimes even before CPAP).
- If you aren't tired with sleep apnoea, you can still drive safely. FALSE - the Epworth score doesn't pick up reduced vigilance or risk of crashing.
Anyway I made a series of online questionnaires (STAMP, Snoring Loudness, STOPBANG, NOSE, Insomnia Severity index, HADS) which anyone can fill out. Your results are emailed to you with a PDF to explain the scores and what they mean. I also added a section which pointed people to information about the NICE guidelines and some videos on my YouTube channel to help people get started.
If you want to do these questionnaires - click here - lnkd.in/ecYRe3TW
The purpose was to help people turn up to their doctor with some reasonable evidence so they can be referred or treated appropriately.
That was the original idea - but some of my patients had other ideas....
5 patients saw me this week and each showed me results Before & After treatment. They filled out the questionnaires how they remembered life was like before treatment and how they were now after treatment.
Previously they were in a desperate state with severe OSA (the highest was AHI > 100), with multiple complex problems and therefore also scored highly on the questionnaires. Then they showed me their current scores - all AHI / ODI / RDI / FLI / RIP and the questionnaire results all within normal limits.
Not the original intention of these questionnaires, but they were clearly overjoyed to belong to a group of people who had reclaimed their deep refreshing sleep again.
So here (finally) is my big idea. Wouldn't it be great to have a goal to normalise the scores for 1000 sleep disordered breathing patients? I want to show that it is possible, so people have some hope again. It is so hard for sleep deprived people to feel like they will ever get out of their predicament. Showing them 1000 people who have made it might give them the motivation to stick with their CPAP, adjust that MAD, opt for that implant or surgery etc. to achieve the sleep (and life) they deserve.
Anyway that's my end-of-the-week idea.
Have a nice weekend all. 😊
2 months ago | [YT] | 66