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Comment by renewiltord | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone used an oral appliance off the market? I googled and found this thing called snoreRx. Any recommendations or reviews?

I would prefer to just go get something like this which I can pay for directly rather than have to navigate insurance etc. so if there's a DTC brand that has worked for someone that would be a great plus.

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Tried 4 kinds, 3 built and bites and one based on dental impressions.

I would recommend trying out a boil and bite just to see if it helps at all. The cheap ones wear out faster but with SnoreLab and such you can evaluate the difference for the first couple of weeks. They also fall out of your mouth easier and are pretty bulky.

The one I would recommend is VitalSleep, it just seemed to have a nicer build quality and it has adjustable screws for different jaw sizes. No major complaints.

I also had success with SnoreRx but it caused a bit more discomfort, sometimes got stuck on my lip, and I woke up with way worse dry mouth / drooling.

I'm using ClearGuard now which is a way sleeker build. I wouldn't say it works any better or worse but it definitely feels better.

For the record, my best results were with one of those things that stuck on your tongue to keep it forward but they fall out if you look at them funny and your tongue feels pretty beat up so I was concerned about long term effects.

I found three or four different products branding themselves as “ClearGuard”, and they all look pretty much like my old anti-bruxism splint - hard and very uncomfortable. Do you have any links to the one you had success with?

I tried it, and it seems to work.

However, I was informed that lacking professional supervision this sort of thing can permanently damage your jaw after prolonged use. From which I deduced that using one occasionally, e.g. for travel, is acceptable. Still, see a doctor and don’t take safety advice from me.

And be sure to shop around, prices for the professionally made device range from $1100 to $4000. If you can justify paying a couple thousand for a newer laptop then an oral appliance might be an even better investment for you.

From the discussion with my doctor and dentist, I ended having both the cpap for home usage and the dental appliance, made by the dentist, for when I'm sleeping elsewhere. In my case (just above mild apnea), sleep is incredibly better with the cpap, and mildly better with the dental appliance,so the second one is good for temporary measures. And I resent forgetting it when it happens, as a week of poor sleep really affects my behavior.

There’s a reason why this sort of thing is managed through someone medically guiding you and that’s because it’s complex, and there is a lot that snoreRx is not suited for. Unless you feel like you have a firm physiological foundation on which to base your need for some sort of treatment, you’re really doing yourself a disservice. There’s also no harm in discussing this with your doctor either

And as someone who's dealt with the ins and outs of CPAP and sleep apnea, increasingly, I believe that reason has very little to do with safety or expertise.

I'm not saying experts can't be valuable, but there's too much obvious bullshit in this space to take at face value what is supposed to be "best practices."

The price fluctuations, the differing bits of information, the restrictions on who can and cannot get what without a prescruption, etc are often quite absurd (when, e.g. compared to the potential danger of MUCH other OTC stuff.)

Example: that it's made condescendingly artificially difficult to adjust your own pressure in a CPAP. It's a damn fan with a release; if you're otherwise healthy, it strongly appears as if the worst possible dangers here are, your sleep will continue to suck and/or you'll fart more.

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