I would like to commence by stating that there is no doubt in my mind that Sleep Apnoea exists and is a valid and extremely debilitating condition.

I also agree that in certain cases it is possible to achieve a remarkable turn-around through the use of a CPAP or BiPAP machine.

In just on 10 years of treating people with asthma, chronic snoring and sleep apnoea, I have however reached the conclusion that these conditions are very often incorrectly diagnosed and inappropriately treated.

It was confirmed in March 2007, at the Annual Conference of the Australian New Zealand Thoracic Society, that asthma was being grossly misdiagnosed and incorrectly treated with inhaled medication.

By the same token the snoring industry has been over prescribing and dispensing splint devices which do little to remedy the situation, and some of the major players have quietly disappeared.

The actual statistics on the successful patient compliance with CPAP are difficult to obtain as it is in the interests of the industry to overstate the effectiveness. They ‘fail’ to take into account those machines that have been prescribed, purchased, trialled and then left lying about in a cupboard because the user just cannot tolerate the device.

According to our in-house records less than 16% of the people that we see are able to use CPAP effectively.

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Roger Price

This article originally appeared in Sleep Apnoea and Dysfunctional Breathing