Still, not everyone is ready to hop into bed with the miracle snore laser just yet.
"In skilled hands, [the laser technique] should be as safe as the [UPPP] surgical procedure--which is pretty safe," says Good Samaritan's Bernard Levine. "But there's one major danger in all of this. If you suffer from snoring and sleep apnea [and] you have the [laser] procedures, it's possible to get rid of the snoring without getting rid of the sleep apnea. When the snoring is gone, the patient may have sleep apnea and the problem will be more difficult to detect."
St. Luke's Robert Kearl agrees. "Like any new procedure, it often takes a year or two to shake out what [the procedure] is really about. If you just treat snoring and the person has sleep apnea, then you may just be covering up the problem."
Even Jean B., who's willing to try almost anything to restore peace to her boudoir, remains skeptical.
"My husband looked into it, but I discouraged it," she says. "It's still really innovative and new. I'm really afraid that they don't know what the true side effects will be down the road. Plus, understand there's no guarantee that it will even work. I'd hate for us to spend all that money for nothing."
@rule:
@body:In spite of those reservations, some former apnea sufferers claim that laser therapy was the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. "I was falling asleep all the time," says Valley pharmaceutical representative Glenn Nelson, whose sleep apnea was eventually diagnosed during an overnight stay at a local sleep-disorder clinic. "I was tired so much of the time that it was very difficult for me to drive."
A salesman, Nelson's job requires frequent car trips to service accounts in northeastern Arizona; miraculously, his sleep disorder never resulted in an automobile accident. Still, Nelson reports that he often grew so weary behind the wheel that he'd fend off fatigue with gallons of anything that contained caffeine. "I used to compensate by drinking lots and lots of coffee," remembers Nelson, whose apnea was later cured with a single laser treatment. "I was chugging down at least a six-pack of Coke a day just to stay awake."
Like many people, Nelson erroneously equated loud snoring with a good night's sleep. That's why Nelson couldn't figure out why he woke up dead-tired every morning in spite of the eruptive snoring spells that finally drove his wife from their bedroom.
Although sleep apnea, like snoring, most often occurs in overweight, middle-aged men, the condition is not limited to those who fall into that high-risk category. Donna Holman is neither overweight nor male. A retired Arkansas school teacher who winters in Mesa, Holman spent several years in a waking fog before doctors traced her debilitating daytime exhaustion to the tortured, apnea-induced snoring that ruined her sleep (as well as her husband's) each night. "I just couldn't seem to stay awake," reports Holman, remembering how she'd routinely fall asleep in the middle of meals and conversations, and of how she'd have to pull her car over to the side of the road for en-route catnaps before giving up driving for good.
For several years after her apnea was diagnosed, Holman found relief with a nasal continuous positive airway pressure unit (nasal CPAP, for short). Resembling a fighter-pilot mask attached to an air pump, the device keeps breathing passages open by pumping a steady stream of air into the apnea sufferer's nose during sleep. "It sounds fairly uncomfortable, but it's considered the treatment of choice for sleep apnea if it works," says St. Luke's Kearl. "When you look at large numbers of patients [who use the nasal CPAP device], once they start wearing it, they feel so much better that they swear by it."
"It took some getting used to," admits Holman, who nevertheless wore the mask for several years before learning of the laser treatment. Finally able to shuck the mask after undergoing laser therapy several months ago, she says, "If you've never had to sleep with that thing over your face, you can't imagine what it's like. I feel like I've gotten out of prison." @rule:
@body:Will laser-assisted snore therapy ever replace a well-aimed elbow or the couch in the den?
Dr. Joel Cohen sincerely doubts it. "I may be able to stop the snoring, but if that marriage is not a good marriage, nothing's going to help it," says Cohen. "This operation can't make a bad marriage a better marriage."
The point was dramatically driven home last year, around the time he began performing the procedure. Running into the wife of a friend whose legendary snoring was so bad the couple hadn't slept in the same room for years, Cohen couldn't wait to share the news of the laser treatment that would change the pair's life.
The woman cut him off instantly. "Do me a big favor," she told Cohen. "Whatever you do, don't tell my husband about this. I like sleeping alone."
Cohen shrugs. "Like I said, this isn't for everybody.
