Effects Of A Nasal Dilator On Sleep And Breathing

If your spouse or bed-partner snores and keeps you up at night, then you're not alone. Today's nasal dilators are typically available OTC at retail stores and from the manufacturer's website, ENT doctor and some can be purchased wholesale by sleep professionals for retailing to patients (of course, rules and regulations must be checked before retailing OTC products at your practice).
The subject answered questions about the dry mouth feeling on a 1-5-scale (5 the driest) and answered a validated questionnaire about quality of sleep (Epworth Sleepiness Scale 53 ). These three instruments were administered immediately before and 2 weeks after the study started.



This exploratory study sought to characterize the performance of the butterfly-shaped prototype device in lowering nasal resistance during sleep and reducing signs, symptoms, and objective measures of sleep-disordered breathing in subjects with chronic nocturnal nasal congestion and difficulty sleeping due to their chronic nasal congestion.
10. A nasal dilator as defined in claim 6; and said retaining means including a single flexible non-adhesive segment between said two end-adhesive segments and extending about equal distances from said connection of said strip with said spring at said central portion thereof; and clamping means including a clamp-piece to secure said non-adhesive segment between said UV-spring and said clamp-piece at said central portion of said UV-spring, for enabling the wearer to install said leg-portions of said spring in said nasal opening without the wearer's fingers contacting said end-adhesive segments and to maintain alignment of said strip with said UV-spring.

3. A nasal dilator comprising in combination: spreading means having a portion for insertion in the nasal opening to act on at least one nostril wall of the wearer for increasing said nasal opening to improve the breathing of the wearer; and retaining means including a flexible strip operatively connected to said spreading means and having adhesive means adapted to be pressed onto the outer nasal surface by the wearer, for preventing said dilator from falling out of said nasal opening.
34. A nasal dilator as defined in claim 31; and said flexible nasal strip including a third adhesive segment at the center thereof to be pressed by the wearer onto said central portion of said UV-spring to connect said flexible nasal strip thereto; said third adhesive segment having a length disposed to provide two non-adhesive segments between said two end adhesive segments and said third adhesive segment, for enabling the wearer to install said dilator without the wearer's fingers contacting said adhesive segments and to determine the portion of the outer nasal walls subjected to said end adhesive segments.

The surgical correction may be used in patients who will further receive the CPAP, since the success of this therapy requires a relatively patent upper airway (8, 9). The patients must interrupt the treatment when they have infection of the upper airways due to the nasal obstruction, as well as use nasal depletion components to facilitate the tolerance to the CPAP (10).
Method: We carried out a multicentric prospective study of 15 patients, from November 2003 through June 2006, with patients using CPAP, divided into two groups: 10 with adhesion problems and five without adhesion problems, all examined for inclusion.

These findings are consistent with those of a previous open-label study that reported significant improvements in subjective measures of sleep during use of the BRNS: in adults with a history of snoring, the BRNS reduced daytime sleepiness on the Stanford Sleepiness Scale (P < 0.01); improved sleep quality; reduced number of awakenings and sleepiness upon awakening; and improved morning concentration (all P < 0.05) 20 However, while the global sleep assessments performed in the current study were all highly significant (P ≤ 0.002), there is an apparent lack of correlation between these subjective findings and many of the objective (PSG) measures of sleep, as no significant improvements were detected via PSG, including for arousals per hour, sleep efficiency, and sleep onset latency.