New device ready to ‘Inspire’ people to better sleep
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — If you are one of the millions using a CPAP machine and hate it, there is a new device that may help you sleep and breathe better and live longer.
Like many couples, Donna Benson and her husband sleep in separate rooms because she snores.
“No, I wouldn’t have known how bad it was,” Benson said.
Recently, when the couple’s daughter and her family moved in for awhile, they shared a bedroom again.
“And my husband told my daughter I was going to die,” she said. “Because we hadn’t slept together for so long, he didn’t realize how bad I’d gotten.”
That wake up call led Benson to Dr. Richard Debo and a device called Inspire.
“It’s like a a cardiac pacemaker, but it’s for your breathing,” said Debo, a Chesapeake doctor specializing in otolaryngology, which focuses on the ears, nose and throat.
Inspire is implanted under the skin near the collarbone. Another incision is made near the jaw line, where the surgeon connects the nerve that controls your tongue.
“It can register when you’re taking a breath in and it sends a signal to the device,” Debo said. “The device then sends a signal to the tongue and moves the tongue forward. just at the time you’re inspiring.”
The patient uses a remote control to turn it on at night. Benson never feels it and we could barely see where Benson’s sits under the skin.
Chesapeake Regional Medical Center will complete 100 inspire implants later this month.
Debo, who’s performed most of the surgeries, reports a 90% success rate.
After the implant, Benson’s apneas plummeted from 85 an hour to just five.
“I was struggling for air the whole night, every night, struggling for air,” she said.
Now, she wakes up every morning, full of life.
“I think it’s the best thing I ever did for myself,” she said, “because, I mean, you can die.”
Inspire is not for everyone and it will set off the security alarm at the airport, but it is covered by most insurance companies including Medicare and the VA.
For more information on Inspire, click here.
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