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Comment by lunderdog | Hacker News Reader

I had surgery to expand my upper jaw and palate three weeks ago, and the improved ability to breathe during the night and day is absolutley life-changing. I used to wake up multiple times a night with a pounding heart, and could never get a restful sleep. Within a few days after surgery, I could sleep through the night and my blood pressure dropped enough to start weening off my hypertension medication.

If somebody is struggling with obstructive sleep apnea, I would suggest consulting with an oral maxillofacial surgeon or otolaryngologist (ENT) to have your jaw and nasal airway examined to see if there's another option besides using a CPAP.

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I am not exactly sure which surgeries you are talking about but for people curious there are basically 3 surgeries to consider:

1. MMA - Break both jaws and advance them forward to expand the airway. Most invasive, most effective. It is a major surgery and should not be taken lightly.

2. Maxillary expansion - Less invasive depending how it's done. Be skeptical of maxillofacial surgeons who do Le Forte osteotomies as part of the procedure. There are many variations of this surgery. EASE is probably the best

3. Nasal surgery.

If you can afford it consider Kasey Li https://drkaseyli.org/ease/

Wishing you the best of luck, but when I looked into this 10 or so years ago the long term success rate of surgery seemed dubious to me.

I read that scar tissue ends up building up and making the problem worse than before, so it ends up being a solution that works until then.

I did end up having turbinate reduction / deviated septum surgery, so at least I can use comfy nasal pillows now. The turbinate reduction definitely destroyed most of my fine sense of smell, which is unfortunate. Wish I'd known that ahead of time.

Anyways, sleep apnea sucks. Wish I could fix my anatomy.

Thank you, I had not heard of the issue related to scar tissue building up. I will look into that more and ask my doctor when I see them later this week. I knew going into the surgery that it was not a sure thing that it would improve my breathing. The primary reason I had it done was to correct a bad underbite and crossbite that causes me to struggle with eating.

> turbinate reduction / deviated septum surgery

I had this too, and it did nothing at all for me - except I now have a permanently numb spot on the top of my nose.

Surgeries are a massive source of profit in the US. I'd recommend getting multiple medical opinions (preferably from the surgeons who don't own multiple yachts) before doing any kind of surgery.

My friend had that surgery, it also gave him a more robust jawline which was a bonus.

He used to snore shockingly loud. It sounded like a jet taking off, if I tried to mimic it intentionally I was unable to get as loud.

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