If you have sleep apnea, one solution to getting treatment is to go to your doctor, talk to him or her about treatment solutions, and decide together what to try.

Another solution is to participate in sleep studies, which try to learn more about sleep and sleep disorders, including sleep apnea.

Sleep research and sleep studies are free to participants and are usually carried out by university hospitals.  They are usually experimental in nature, but because they will not cost you anything, you really can’t lose by participating.

Traditionally, sleep studies were carried out in sleep labs, which means you had to stay overnight in a hospital or laboratory environment.  These days, participants can use sensors to have their sleep monitored in the comfort of their own home.  The advantage is, of course, that the researchers can get a more accurate picture of how you really sleep — almost everyone sleeps more lightly in a strange bed and in a strange environment, so sending you home with sleep sensors enables researchers to study your sleep patterns without taking you out of comfortable, familiar surroundings.

You might also be able to get into a study that tests out new equipment used to treat sleep apnea, such as experimental CPAP equipment.  Usually, in order to get onto a study that looks at new treatment options, you have to meet certain criteria.  For instance, your sleep apnea might have to be pretty serious (usually measured by how often you stop breathing), or you might need to demonstrate that your sleep apnea hasn’t responded to the BiPAP and CPAP machines currently on the market.

Sleep studies, of any type, are a good option to consider if you have sleep apnea and would like to be part of the current research on this dangerous condition.  You can find out about sleep studies by watching ads in the paper and on community boards and websites, or by calling university hospitals in your area directly.

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