You may also need:
- RF Turbinate reduction. Turbinates are the tissue immediately behind your nose - they can become inflamed. I had this - it helps (turns out the doc that did the procedure on me was the one that developed it.) It's an outpatient procedure, takes about 15-45 minutes (depending on how much reduction you need. I had four sites bilateral and was done in 20-odd minutes.) The inflamed tissue is coagulated with RF energy (akin to how a microwave oven works) and is purged by the body over the next week or so.
- Somnoplasty. This is a reduction of the soft palate (back end of the roof of your mouth) and uvula (pink dangly thing at the back of your mouth cavity) - which I'm in line for - just haven't been able to have it done yet. I don't know what's involved in this, because I haven't had it done yet.
- An EENT, pulmonologist, or GP should be able to order an overnight polysomnography (sleep study) - the problem I have with having them is that they want to do them at night - bed around 2200-2230 and wake around 0600. I'm nocturnal - I don't usually go to bed until 0600-0700, so they're not catching me when I sleep.
Other conditions may apply - I have major post-traumatic chronic sinusitis, and take several Sudafed every night before I go to bed (and work on a couple of Hall's until the Sudafed kicks in.) Even so, the crud that I dig out of my beak every day after I get up could stick a loaded bookcase to the wall, and there's a lot of it! Typical routing on waking is to root around with Q-tips until I get most of it out, then build up a good head of steam in the shower to loosen up the rest. What I get usually resembles rubber cement, but there aren't any signs of infection (it's even been cultured to make sure - it's not the product of an infectious process, just chronic irritation.)
Most of my breathing issues stem from massive facial trauma (stellate fracture of faceplate, from just below nose to hairline, and full-width) and the resultant aftereffects. You probably don't have as much wrong with you as I do with me, but it's worth checking into. Do you have clogged up nasal passages when you wake up? What colour is your mucous? Is there a lot of adipose tissue around your neck? General physical condition? Muscle tone?
Chances are good your MD is going to ask these questions (or try to determine answers for himself,) so you want to chew on the answers anyhow. They're important, so you're going to want the answers to them before you do anything else.
(Side note - CPAP can help, if your condition warrants it and you can tolerate the mask - I'm told they can be quite comfortable, my wife uses one and my mother-in-law did.)
