{"id":1953,"date":"2008-01-11T13:15:07","date_gmt":"2008-01-11T20:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=1953"},"modified":"2008-01-11T13:16:44","modified_gmt":"2008-01-11T20:04:44","slug":"treat-sleep-apnea-with-a-didgeridoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=1953","title":{"rendered":"Treat Sleep Apnea with a Didgeridoo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Given the number of pharmaceutical medications I&#8217;m on, I have the most horrendous breath. I&#8217;m getting desperate for cures.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/body.aol.com\/health\/cures-uncommon\/\">AOL suggests<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Duct tape has hundreds of uses, but apparently researchers at Hebrew University  Hadassah School of Dental Medicine felt that fixing a malodorous mouth shouldn&#8217;t  be one of them. So they experimented with other, less restrictive ways to stop  the stench, including shining some light on the problem. In a study reported in  the <em>Journal of Medical Microbiology<\/em>, the scientists exposed saliva  samples to various wavelengths of light and then conducted a sniff test. The  winner: blue light&#8211;by a nose. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;It induces the production of oxygen  radicals, which are harmful to anaerobic bacteria, the producers of bad breath,&quot;  says study author Nir Sterer, D.M.D., Ph.D.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Treat Sleep Apnea with a Didgeridoo<\/strong><br \/>\n&quot;A didgeri-what?&quot; you ask. While  aborigines in Australia have been playing this long wooden trumpet for  centuries, it&#8217;s just recently been redefined as a modern-day medical device.  Researchers reporting in the <em>British Medical Journal<\/em> evaluated 25 people  with sleep apnea&#8211;a breath-stealing condition caused by flabby throat  muscles&#8211;and found that those who took 4 months of didgeridoo (DIH-jeh-ree-doo)  lessons had about 31\/2 times less daytime sleepiness than the folks who didn&#8217;t  blow their own horns. The newly minted musicians also snored significantly less.  Credit this <strong>uncommon cure<\/strong> to vibrations that exercise tissue in the mouth  and throat, says researcher Milo Puhan, Ph.D. &quot;When these muscles are  strengthened, the tongue has less tendency to obstruct the airway.&quot;  <\/p>\n<p><strong>Make it work for you<\/strong>: If huffing on a wooden tube to treat your  sleep apnea sounds a tad too weird, then you probably aren&#8217;t familiar with the  alternatives. The most commonly prescribed option is continuous positive airway  pressure (CPAP), which involves spending every night hooked up to a machine that  pumps air down your throat to keep it from collapsing. The other approach is  surgery, and that&#8217;s only 30 to 60 percent effective. Now are you ready to toot  the didgeridoo? You can pick up a beginner-friendly model for about $80 at L.A.  Outback (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.laoutback.comtarget=&quot;blank&quot;\/\">laoutback.com<\/a>).  And don&#8217;t worry; it&#8217;s intuitive to learn, says co-owner Barry Martin. You purse  your lips and blow into it with the beat.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><!--adsense--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Given the number of pharmaceutical medications I&#8217;m on, I have the most horrendous breath. I&#8217;m getting desperate for cures. AOL suggests: Duct tape has hundreds of uses, but apparently researchers at Hebrew University Hadassah School of Dental Medicine felt that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=1953\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}