My Experience with Inspire

I never really knew what sleep apnea was until my doctor had me do alot of tests. During those tests I found out that I also had COPD and asthma. When my doctor explained it to me, come to find out my partner had been noticing that my breathing at night would stop almost every night from 3 to 5 minutes at a time, he would get scared and would wake me up.

I stayed over night in the hospital for the sleep apnea testing. I had my own room, everyone was super kind, when it was bed time the nurse hooked me up to a machine with all kinds of wires stuck on me, she monitored me all night and I left the next morning. The results came back that I would stop breathing about 86 times a hour. So I had to go back to the testing again and get fitted for a cpap machine.

The machine and i did not get along at all, we parted ways after 3 months, renting the cpap machine is expensive. I heard about a implant called Inspire, my doctor sent me to a Inspire doctor, she did another test on me to see if I would qualify for the implant, Yes I did, the next thing was to get my insurance to pay for it, they didn't want to but my doctor got them to agree.

It took about 2 hours to do the surgery, I wasn't scared at all, I was delighted to have the surgery. My doctor put me to sleep, she implanted a small battery by my right chest that a wire goes from the battery to my tongue. I have a small hand held remote that I use to activate the battery when I go to bed. The purpose is when I sleep and stop breathing, my tongue gets shocked to make my tongue move so I wont stop breathing.

I don't get charged and the battery in my chest is good for 10 years. I have had my Inspire implant for about 6 or 7 years now and I really like it, I am doing so well now that I don't have to see my Inspire doctor for a whole year.