(Note: This article contains medical and other information which should be taken for illustrative purposes only. You should always seek the advice of a competent medical professional if you suspect you have any sort of illness.)

I was diagnosed with sleep apnea several years ago. Sleep apnea, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is a condition where your airways relax as you sleep and close off. When they close too much, you aren't getting enough oxygen into your body and you wake up, causing the airways to open back up. A person with sleep apnea will be pulled out of "restorative" sleep many times in a single hour. They wake up exhausted, go through their days tired, tend to be depressed, and have other problems like high blood pressure. It's not a great way to live.

I spent several nights having various readings taken of me sleeping at night, during the daytime, with a CPAP machine at various settings, etc. When it was all said and done, my neurologist prescribed a CPAP machine as a solution.

For those of you who don't know what a CPAP machine is, it's essentially a big air compressor that pushes air out at a specific level of pressure, into a tube which is connected to a face mask, which is connected to a harness of sorts, and is strapped to the patient's head while the patient sleeps. The theory behing the CPAP is that by pushing air through the person's airways at a continuous pressure as they sleep, you will keep their airways from closing shut while they sleep.

Some patients see the CPAP machine as a godsend. They feel better, wake up refreshed, and in general are thrilled with the device. As for me, it was not a godsend. I felt no better on the device than off. Worse, I couldn't sleep in positions I felt comfortable in because they would dislodge the face mask. When that happened, it blew air into my eyes, which made them burn and dry out. The mask itself, if not washed every day, made my face break out. Then there was the fact that you had to keep distilled water around for the device's humidifier, and wash the whole thing once a week. For me, these added troubles were more than whatever benefit I might have been getting from the device.

After around 3 solid months of faithfully using the device, keeping it on all night, etc., I felt no better. Not a bit. In fact, because I'd had to sleep in positions I wasn't comfortable in and deal with the mask, I now had backaches and facial acne that I didn't before. I asked my doctor if there wasn't some other solution. He referred me to an ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat) surgeon.

The surgeon felt I was a good candidate for surgery, and I was fortunate that my insurance covered it. I underwent the surgery and resulting pain, and for a while things were much better. That might have been the end of the story if I hadn't gained about 40 pounds and, it seems, negated the effect of the surgery. I was back to snoring and apnea again. They (my neurologist and general practitioner) wanted me back on the CPAP. I told them, quite honestly, that if the CPAP added 20 years to my life, the hassles it brought with it weren't worth the 20 years.

I've tried different masks, and in fact have on order an expensive mask that claims to be more tolerable than any other. We'll see about that. I'm not optimistic. (And no, in the meantime, I refuse to use the darned thing.)

I read earlier today that a group of researchers, concerned about how many people (like me) give up on the annoying CPAP device, is working on a different device. Unfortunately, it's more of the same. This one inserts a single tube into the patient's nose and uses airway pressure along with extra oxygen. They claim it will have better compliance than CPAP. Maybe.

To me, with an engineering mindset, CPAP and other air pressure machines are not fixing the problem, but the symptom. It's like solving a leaky tire by hooking up a battery powered air pump to the wheel. Sure, the tire's not going to go flat, but it's still a leaky tire. You're going to have to replace that battery, keep the pump maintained, etc. The oxygen machine is like adding a little fix-a-flat in with the air pump. Still, there's a hole in that tire that needs repaired.

What amazes me is that no one seems to be thinking of THIS solution... If you have a blocked artery or vein, doctors will insert a device called a "stent" into the artery to prop it open and allow blood to flow through. They don't insert miniature pumps to push more blood through the blocked area, or give you drugs to make your heart pump harder. They fix the blockage. Sleep apnea is essentially the same thing. It's an airway that becomes blocked.

Why not a surgical implant, or implants, which can be inserted into a patient's airways to make them stay open? No worries about patient compliance because the appliances are installed by a surgeon and don't come out. No issues (probably) with the patient (like me) gaining weight because the devices prop the airway open. The solution should be permanent (unlike a CPAP, that wears out eventually), fixes the problem (closing up of airways) rather than the symptom, and should have all the same health benefits. I confident that we have materials from which such supports could be made, which aren't rejected by the body and which are durable enough to last a lifetime (or at least a few decades). I'd jump at the chance to be in the trial group for such an appliance. I suspect many current and former CPAP users would, too.

What about it, medical researchers?