Home Test Advice

Hello everyone.

I've been offered an at home test for sleep apnea and was hoping someone could offer some advice. To help me sleep somewhat better I currently wear a nose strip to enlarge my airways, and a mouthguard to encourage nasal breathing. Whilst this improves my sleep it's still pretty awful.

I'm wondering if i should use these when I do the sleep study, or should I just have a completely natural sleep without any assistance that could effect the results?

Thanks everyone!

If it is a typical home test they will use a canula in your nose. As long as the mouth guard and nose strip do not interfere with the canula I would expect it would be OK. But, to be sure ask the sleep clinic that provides the test kit. The test kid I used has a test success/fail indication on it. If you get the fail light you have to repeat the test, so it is best to get it right the first time.

Agree with Sierra. You need to ask the sleep doc.

In a sleep lab they make you sleep on your back, because they want to see your sleep apnea at its worst. Anything that interferes with that may mean you will not be diagnosed and get the treatment you really need. I would think, therefore, that they would want to see how you sleep unaided by any gadgets or intervention to get the most accurate diagnostic measurements. But check with your sleep doc.

Thanks for the replies :)

I think I'll definitely talk to the specialists then. I expect they'll want a true representation of my sleep, unaided by gadgets as mentioned.

Thanks a lot!