This picture of me describes how I felt after suffering for years from sleep apnea – half dead. The x-ray was taken as part of research to find a cure. I did all kinds of experiments some of which were crazy and outright dangerous. I had a deep belief that there had to be a cure for snoring and sleep apnea so I had to try everything.
In 2012, I met Dr. Oron Zachar, the Chief Scientist of a medical device company. Dr. Zachar is a widely respected inventor, respiratory expert and an avid surfer.
When I heard he was working on a solution for snoring and sleep apnea for 8 years, I had to convince him to let me join him. We decided to work together on the project, and that’s why I needed to do a full head x-ray.
The above picture was a variation of Dr. Zachar’s invention that we developed together. It was custom fit for my mouth made possible by the x-ray.
The bar with the laminated foam in the back was to prevent the tongue from falling back into to the throat. The tongue is a major player in snoring and sleep apnea.
After many tries, the project couldn’t reach our standards for comfort so we decided to drop it.
I decided to continue my research to find a solution. I had to cure my sleep apnea because existing snoring and sleep apnea devices were too uncomfortable for me.
I read hundreds of research papers about physical therapy for snoring. They all pointed to the fact that poor swallowing was behind snoring and to some extent, sleep apnea. The approach made a lot of sense to me. Dr. Zachar gave me his blessing to continue on my new path to find the best way to rehabilitate the tongue and throat.
An early version of the Dream Sipper.
After a lot of trial and error and research, I came up with the Dream Sipper. The Dream Sipper dramatically cut my loud snoring. I combined the Dream Sipper with regular exercise to cure my sleep apnea. (People are not aware that long term exercise releases the AMPK enzyme that was found to get rid of apnea in mice). I went from a severe apnea score of 33 down to 0-1 apneas and 0-4 hypopneas based on several tests.
The Dream Sipper also help reduce my acid reflux. I no longer buy multi-vitamins since my sip swallowing forces me to chew food better. Chewing better is proven to increase absorption of the nutrients of whatever we eat.
We are on a mission to make people more aware of how they swallow and the big effects it has on their health.
We are now working on the diet version of the Dream Sipper, called the Zen Sipper. Turns out that swallowing correctly makes you feel full from less food. This makes it easier to stay on any diet to lose weight. It also makes it so much easier to eat mindfully.
Feel free to drop us a note and say hello.
To your good health and great sleep,
Scott Hirsch
Founder
Adaptive Airway Labs