The Sleep Apnea Fix Doctors Rarely Teach Patients

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]It angers me that doctors are skipping over the sleep apnea fix. Yes, I would say this word with a P, but it upsets my mom and I'll get a text from her later if she watches this video. You can't say that on the internet. But what we can talk about on the internet is about the big gaps in the usual treatment plan for sleep apnea. Why doctors miss this? Is it a big conspiracy? Stay tuned. And of course, something practical for you here just so that you just don't learn to say cool and then go watch a video about puppies. Although that does sound like a good time. If you don't know me, I'm also a good Tom. Dylan Pekus. I had sleep apnnea back in med school. Not a good time. Fix that with a lot of the things we talk about on this channel here. Of course, this is for educational purposes only. Always talk to your doctor before everything that you do, especially when you learn things for your health from the internet. That's usually a good filter pass here. So, we want to talk about really the the truth about a lot of these sleep apnnea treatments here before we get to the super awesome drill for you here. So, what's the deal? Is CPAP really the gold standard? I I wouldn't really say so. In theory, it is if it works perfectly. But the real issue is that if you recommend 100 patients all use a CPAP, by the end of that year, way less than half of them are even using it. It's more like 70% just aren't using it at all. And then that leaves only 30% of people who aren't having any benefit. Not like completely cured and good and dandy, but like any benefit whatsoever.

[00:01:40]And like I said, when they study this and they look at people who are using CPAT for a good amount of time, a lot of them are still having residual sleepiness. Thus, you'll end up down this lane of some other things, right?

[00:01:51]Like, oh, here's a mouth guard. Wow, looks great. But the research has shown that you only typically get around a 50% reduction in moderate to severe sleep apnnea with a mouthguard. And you would think that's slightly different from surgery, but it's really not because when you look at all surgeries, we are not going to pick one surgery versus another, whether it's jaw surgery or getting your uva taken out or anything like that. But if we put everything all together and look at the success rate, which is defined by a at least 50% reduction in your AHI, which is your sleep apnea severity, you're around 60%.

[00:02:30]I don't know about you, but 60%. I don't like those odd. That's why I was offered surgery at one point.

[00:02:38]Yeah, co and flip not my best option there. Now, if we compare the thing I want to teach and show you here today against these others in terms of the typical AHI reduction and we're talking about myofunctional therapy here, my friends. So if we look at AHI reduction again the CPAP if it works if we pull everyone together and take 30% of this this number would be similar around 10 for this here but I figured I'd give the fully great version here. Now uh so myofunctional therapy is right on target with a lot of these different interventions yet I never heard about this in medical school or residency. You just hear slap them in a sleep center, put them on a CPAP. That's like basically it. There's one PowerPoint slide of sleep apnea in like four years of medical school. Uh, and that's pretty much it. All right. And like night terrors because that's a great board exam question. So, why does this happen?

[00:03:41]Well, one, your doctor just doesn't like you. That's just really No, that's okay.

[00:03:45]That might be true. I don't know. But uh the fact of the matter is when they're teaching us really the only thing we ever learn about our devices and really it's it's literally just that CPAP and that's basically it and we move on from that there. Now a big part of that is because in the 80s that was found to be helpful when there was like really no other options besides just sticking a uh a hole into your throat and having people breathe through there. So yeah, CPAP is a step above that, but that's like saying I don't know, anything's above dog poop. So that's how CPAP got to the guidelines and then guidelines will be taught in schools and then that will be the practice and the practice reinforces the guidelines and the research so on and so forth here. Now there will be academics out there who just like to research things and when they do look at myofunctional therapy, they do find like I said about a 50% reduction in AHI But yet that's never really taught. And a big part of that, just like with weight loss diet and exercise, doctors are not going to be focusing on things that require ongoing coaching and support.

[00:04:58]Really doctors that the goal is here's your medication, here's your surgery.

[00:05:03]That's basically it. Yeah, we can say educate the patient. Yeah, that that works, right? No, it it really hasn't.

[00:05:10]So that's why myofunctional therapy really gets left out. But here's the thing, it's not super complicated. Yes, I do think it's good to see a myofunctional practitioner that will give you the full experience.

[00:05:20]But what I will give you here today will give you a really good big old chunk of it. All right, so we want to talk about the drill.

[00:05:30]The number one thing for you to do here today, if you're not in our membership, if you are, just stick to your breathing program. That'll be more efficient for you. I don't have to hear about you doing 30 minutes of breathing exercises.

[00:05:42]Just stick to your plant that you get.

[00:05:45]Now, we're gonna do three things. I know there's like two things here, and this does not replace CPAP, okay? Just be clear. So, first things first, we want to get the tongue into a good position.

[00:05:56]Myofunctional therapy is all about how you use your muscles and the function of how you breathe. All right, awesome. I know a lot of times it focuses on sticking your tongue out, blowing your cheek, all that stuff. But in reality, kind of the 8020 rule whereby 20% of the exercises give you 80% of the effort.

[00:06:17]Here we go. So number one, tongue suction.

[00:06:22]You're doing this. If you have a frenulum still, that little tongue cord, not a tongue tie, depends on the position of where it is. But if you see that as you do this, good. That's what you want to do. Let me show you the incorrect variant.

[00:06:37]That's incorrect. Incorrect again.

[00:06:41]Thumbs up.

[00:06:43]Thumbs down. You want to suction it to the roof of your mouth. So, do that.

[00:06:48]Keep your mouth closed. I open my mouth because I just want to find creative ways to show you if I brush my teeth recently. So, number one, suck your tongue to the roof of your mouth. Number two, we're going to do a little drill.

[00:07:02]Inhale for a four count and then you are going to exhale slowly through your nose. Ideally for a 12 count but if you can't do that do 10 or eight something like that. So looks like this. So tongue to the roof of the mouth. Inhale and then exhale slowly or 8 to 12 count.

[00:07:21]Now the third layer of this is that you add a hum to the exhale humale which I am strongly considering actually trademarking that's not worth the trademark money by any stretch of imagination. So it's basically using a hum as an exhale. You have to exhale to hum. That's air leaving your body. So tongue to the roof of your mouth.

[00:07:47]Inhale. And then we're going to hum for 8 to 12 seconds. Now, I gave you the drill because I didn't want you to sit through something and then had to see a comment. It's like, "Oh gosh, the drill is at this time stamp." Okay, we get it.

[00:07:59]Why does that work? So, number one, when you breathe with your tongue in the roof of your mouth, the more time you have your tongue in that position, it will strengthen the tongue. So, instead of being down and back and flopping into your airway, it is more likely to be up and out. It will take a little bit of time for that to affect. Think of it like changing your posture just because you are now aware that you're slouched over and you go backwards.

[00:08:23]You know, over time you'll spend more and more time like this, but you'll kind of revert back to your typical posture.

[00:08:29]Same thing with your tongue. Secondly, breathing through your nose slowly will start to boost nitric oxide and also boost carbon dioxide, which will be helpful to maintain a better breathing pattern at night. And then that nitric oxide is then thirdly enhanced by using the hum as the exhale. Simple as that.

[00:08:49]Do that for about 5 10 minutes within an hour of bedtime. That will do you a world of good here. So give that a whirl tonight if you have it. Now, if you do want to boost that because it's one thing to have the practice and just like if you work out, you need to have like your whey protein or I mean just chicken or tuna, whatever floats your protein boat. Similar idea here because when you're doing these exercises, the buildup of nitric oxide is one of the ways in which it is beneficial. However, those with sleep apnea, their main pathway to build nitric oxide falls apart for two reasons. Number one, your sleep stinks and you have a lot of inflammation, oxidation that leads to that pathway shutting down. And you also have aging which leads to the same thing. All right? I know most of my audience is I mean I think it's like 90% of my audience is more than 50 years old. So you fall into that category.

[00:09:41]You've lost mostly all of your ability to produce nitric oxide the uh the main way. Now that's why we have a backup pathway that uses dietary nitrates to help offset that. Now easiest way is flow breathe. Otherwise, what you can do have about four to six servings of either beets, celery, arugula, spinach, etc. Enjoy your sugar, enjoy your oxalates, or I mean just a scoop of flow breathe oil to enhance that exercise for better oxygen flow. So, you want to check that out, that is at apneet.com/flow.

[00:10:14]Maybe there's a button you can press on the screen, maybe there's not. I'm really not sure. But either way, that is available for you there. And if you want to get more of your own personalized breathing exercises, you can go to here apnereset.comshow.

[00:10:29]And I don't think I have it here, but that's fine. No consults for anyone here today. Just go ahead check out either of those exercises. Uh, okay. If you do want a consult, it's pretty simple. You just go there. All right, there you go.

[00:10:45]Sorry, I've been busy. I don't want to just more events on my calendar. But if you need the help, it's there for you.

[00:10:51]So if you want the consult, it's forconult.

[00:10:54]Um if you want the program, it's forward/show. There you go. Either way, thank you for watching. I'm Dylan Pekus and I'll see you