Google Search Results Reflect the Change in Sleep Apnea Treatment. Dental Sleep Medicine is Front and Center on Google Searches Giving Patients an Alternative to Masks, Hoses and CPAP Machines.

    GURNEE, IL, November 22, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- A small web company is changing how sleep apnea is treated. This marketing of I HATE CPAP LLC is making the patients who are unhappy with CPAP aware of treatment alternative offered by Dental Sleep Medicine and patients are loving having an alternative to CPAP. Sleep Apnea is a dangerous life threatening condition that affects millions but unlike other serious disease it is easy to recognize and easy to treat. CPAP has always been the Gold Standard of treatment but the dirty little secret was that the majority of patients could not tolerate the treatment. The majority of patients have never used CPAP on a regular basis. CPAP is still an excellent treatment and about 25% of patients love it from their first night and become long term and often lifetime users of CPAP. These patients see CPAP as nothing short of miraculous. When treating severe apnea CPAP is still the first line of treatment but oral appliances are successfully treating severe sleep apnea in patients who do not tolerate CPAP.

Patients who do a Google search of "CPAP" now find that the second natural listing is "Sleep Apnea - CPAP Sleep Apnea Alternative Treatment" which is the www.ihatecpap.com site. A Google search of "Sleep Apnea treatment" brings up the same result. Sleep apnea treatment with oral appliances was always a treatment of last resort with CPAP being the preferred treatment and painful ineffective throat surgery (UP3) as the alternative. Patients wishing an alternative were hard pressed to find sleep doctors who even mentioned oral appliance therapy.

The field of sleep medicine has turned an important corner and Oral Appliance Therapy of Obstructive Sleep Apnea is taking its rightful place front and center along with CPAP. The major CPAP companies are coming out with their own oral appliances and/or buying oral appliance companies. National sales managers of CPAP companies are leaving CPAP companies to work for oral appliance companies. Dr Ira L Shapira, a Chicago dentist is a pioneer of Dental Sleep medicine. He was one of 20 dentists at the first meeting of the Sleep Disorder Dental Society which has become the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine. He came up with the I HATE CPAP website (http://www.ihatecpap.com) because that was the reason patients gave for wanting an oral appliance to treat sleep apnea. The public has responded incredibly to this sentiment because patients often felt like failures when they could not tolerate CPAP. Their physicians did not tell them that most patients were just like them and could not tolerate CPAP therapy. The website has 10,000 visitors a month who are looking for alternatives to CPAP for treating sleep apnea. The success of the site is clearly evidenced by the public's heavy traffic driving ihatecpap.com to the top of Googles search engines results.

The success of the site is also a testament to the excellence of Dr Shapira's marketing partners. Page 1 Solutions a leading computer company that specializes in search engine optimization and professional websites and has steadfastly worked to achieve what once would have been considered impossible. Much of this success is also due to Hamilton/Saunderson Marketing in Seattle, one of the finest marketing firms for professional marketing. This small group has helped bring Dental Sleep Medicine front and center. The National Sleep Foundation has declared that "Oral Appliances are a therapy whose time has come." The parameters of care from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) now list oral appliances as a first choice treatment for mild to moderate sleep apnea along with CPAP.

The field of Dental Sleep Medicine was born in large part due to Rosalind Cartwright PhD who first pioneered oral appliances an published her first papers in 1984. Initially oral appliances were met by derision by the sleep community but due to Dr Cartwright's persistence the field grew. Dr Cartwright was also primarily responsible for postural therapy for treating sleep apnea. Combining the treatments has created a powerful alternative to CPAP. The original appliance tested by Dr Cartwright was the TRD or Tongue-retaining Device invented by Dr Charles Samuelson a Universiy of Chicago psychiatrist who when faced with UP3 (uvulopalatopharyngealplasty) surgery to treat his apnea rejected it and created his first appliance out of beeswax. The October issue of The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine has a research article on the efficacy of the TRD as a CPAP alternative. There is also a commentary by Dr Rosalind Cartwright on the "RETURN OF THE TRD." It is fitting that we look back to the origins of Dental Sleep Medicine and at the TRD as the world of sleep medicine moves more and more to oral appliances.

Dr Ira L Shapira who founded I HATE CPAP LLC had Dr Cartwright as a personal mentor. When his son was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea at five years old (treated by tonsillectomy which along with adenoid removal is still the first line treatment for pediatric sleep apnea) he became a dedicated advocate of oral appliance therapy. Dr Cartwright treating his son led to him becoming a Visiting Assistant Professor at Rush Medical School in Chicago in the mid 1980's where he did research on the jaw relations of sleep apnea patients. His research used neuromuscular dentistry to measure jaw movement and function and found that male sleep apnea patients were remarkably similar to female TMJ disorder patients. Dr Shapira returned to Rush as an Assistant Professor in the 1990's to treat sleep apnea patients.

The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institute of Health (NIH) published a paper "CARDIOVASCULAR AND SLEEP-RELATED CONSEQUENCES OF TEMPOROMANDIBULAR DISORDERS " that looks at sleep apnea as a TMJ disorder. The report can be found at http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/meetings/workshops/tmj_wksp.pdf

Dr Shapira has recently created a new website www.ihateheadaches.org that he hopes will bring neuromuscular treatment of headaches to the forefront of headache treatment. The website now comes up on the first page Google searches of "headache Treatment" as the second natural listing. Neuromuscular Dentistry has been in the news on a daily basis due to the success of the PPM Mouthguard or Pure Power Mouthguard which uses Neuromuscular Dentistry to increase sports performance. The New Orleans Saints credit their unbeaten record at least partly due to these high tech and pricey mouthguards.

There are often phenomenal successes when chronic daily headaches, tension-type headaches and migraines are treated with neuromuscular dentistry. That is because the Trigeminal nerve (the dental nerve) is responsible not only for most headaches but also for sinus pain and headaches, ear pain, stuffy ears and many other disorders. TMJ disorders are often called the Great Imposter because they cause symptoms like headaches, sinus and ear problems via the trigeminal Nerve. "SUFFER NO MORE: DEALING WITH THE GREAT IMPOSTER" (http://www.sleepandhealth.com/story/suffer-no-more-dealing-great-impostor) discusses TMJ disorders in Sleep and Health Journal and is a must read for anyone with TM Joint disorders or headaches. There is also an article in Sleep and Health Journal on Neuromuscular Dentistry that was originally published in the American Equilibration Society (AES) Journal. It is available at: http://www.sleepandhealth.com/neuromuscular-dentistry

Dr Ira L Shapira is an author and section editor of Sleep and Health Journal, President of I HATE CPAP LLC, President Dato-TECH, and has a Gurnee Dental Practice with his partner Dr Mark Amidei. He has recently formed Chicagoland Dental Sleep Medicine Associates with offices in Skokie, Schaumburg, Vernon Hills, Bannockburn and Chicago. He is a Secretary and Regent of ICCMO (International College of CranioMandibular Orthopedics) and is the ICCMO representative to the TMD Alliance, He was a founding and certified member of the Sleep Disorder Dental Society which became the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine, a founding member of DOSA the Dental Organization for Sleep Apnea. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine, A Diplomat of the American Academy of Pain Management, a graduate of LVI. He is a former assistant professor at Rush Medical School's Sleep Service where he worked with Dr Rosalind Cartwright who is a founder of Sleep Medicine and Dental Sleep Medicine. Dr Shapira is a consultant to numerous sleep centers and teaches courses in Dental Sleep Medicine in his office to doctors from around the U.S. He is the Founder of I HATE CPAP LLC and http://www.ihatecpap.com. Dr Shapira also holds several patents on methods and devices for the prophylactic minimally invasive early removal of wisdom teeth and collection of bone marrow and stem cells. Dr Shapira is a licensed general dentist in Illinois and Wisconsin.

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