Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
WAIT - Don't Do It Until You Read This!, July 5, 2009
One size just CAN NOT FIT ALL and this device has absolutely no adjustment for your jaw size, depth of bite, teeth configuation or jaw curvature.
Which size are you? Which size is this Mandibular Advancement Device (MAD)? There is one major problem, you can't know without spending money and time wearing it.
Obviously this works for a lot of people, but are you one of them? I wasn't.
It did not work for me. My jaw must be larger than this is designed for, or possibly smaller, I don't know which. This device advanced my lower jaw, but in doing so it put backwards pressure on my upper teeth. My upper teeth were being pushed backwards all night long. This device does not provide any support behind your upper teeth while pushing on them. The backwards pressure on my upper teeth, combined with the lack of support behind them, was causing my upper teeth to be forcibly moved out of position, and it hurt. Eating hurt, even soft foods, all day long. I also had sore jaw muscles on my right side, so sore that I couldn't bite down on the molars on that side. I was taking small bites of food and trying to swallow them whole.
Due to having read the many succesfull testimonials below, I stuck with it for a full week, my mistake not theirs. At the end of 7 days my upper teeth were moving backwards and hurting and were loosening in their sockets, and bleeding at the gums. After 7 days of it getting worse instead of better (I should have stopped after the first night) I finally gave it up. I really wanted this to work.
Then I started looking around on the internet for other devices, hopefully one that could be adapted to my jaw size specifically. Lo and behold there are many many of them out there, they are generically called "boil and bite" devices. They work on the same principle as this one by holding the lower jaw in an advanced postion, BUT, they are customizable to you and this one is not. You drop the "boil and bite" into boiling water and then take them out and let them cool a bit, then you bite down into them, forming a permanent mold of your teeth. They contain two materials - one is a plastic tray (so to speak) that is not softened or changed by the heat. The other is a filler material inside of the plastic tray that is softened by the heat.
When you bite down, you bite down into a channel of plastic material that has been softened and then perfectly form fits to YOUR teeth and YOUR jaw size and curvature and depth of bite. After it cools it retains that shape. Thus you now have not only a MAD that fits your jaw/teeth exactly and precisely, but it also provides support on both sides of your teeth so that any pressure caused by advancing your lower jaw forward does not cause your teeth to shift in their sockets.
Better yet, some of the "boil and bite" devices are about half the cost of this one.
There are various grades of these "boil and bite" devices. Even the cheapest one is going to be better than this product, but there are some out there that are superb. I ended up buying the SomnoGuard AP. It costs about 3 times as much as this device. And after using it, it is worth every penny of it - to me. You may not want or need to pay that much, and you certainly don't have to. I saw a couple of the "boil and bites" for around $30.
The SomnoGuard AP (I am not receiving any kind of kickback, it is simply an honest review that will hopefully help you compare to this model) has an adjustment system that after being adjusted to you by biting into the warm material, also allows you to set the amount of lower jaw advancement using an adustment screw. This means that you can start off with a slightly forward lower jaw and over time advance it gradually so that you get used to it gently. This also means that you can stop adjusting the forward position of your lower jaw, when you get the results YOU want. As in when you are no longer keeping your partner awake, you can stop right there. Or if it takes you more forward ajustment than other people, you can keep moving it until you get there. Additionally you can always warm the somnoguard back up and re-set your bite any you want or need to.
AND, the SomnoGuard AP also allows for side to side movement of your jaws without changing the forward adjustment of your lower jaw. This is WAY more comfortable. Being able to flex my jaws sideways at night makes it a lot easier to handle. This is a big deal.
Bottom line, I recommend investigating the numerous "boil and bite" appliances out there before you purchase this one. This one may work for you, it may not - the problem is how can you know in advance of trying it for a week? Even the lowest price "boil and bite" has advantages over this one. And there are some out there that are astronomically superior.
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37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Life Changing, December 17, 2006
For anyone who snores, you will know what I mean when I say this was life changing. I don't what percentage of snorers this would work on, but it certainly worked on me. My snoring had gotten louder and louder to the point where being a house guest was embarassing. Although my wife could usually sleep through it, she occasionally woke up and couldn't go back to the sleep, unable to stop me, even if she got me turned on my side. This device pushes my lower jaw forward, freeing up the air passage. Now, I have an overbite to begin with, and if I push my lower jaw out and take a deep breath I can feel the air flowing much more smoothly than normal. This doesn't seem to be true of most people, so maybe effectiveness is limited to a certain type of jaw. The only reason it doesn't get five stars is a workmanship issue - the mold flashing leaves an annoying edge on the part line. It took me a few weeks to get used to it.
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing! (With a little modification), May 12, 2008
All right, my first reaction to the cheesy name was the sense that I was about to throw away $60 for a worthless piece of plastic. Still, after being diagnosed with moderate sleep apnea and not wanting to be hooked up to an expensive machine that would make me look like Darth Vader, I said what the heck and sent for one.
My confidence was shaken further when it arrived with no instructions and strange random black bits embedded in its translucent plastic (lousy quality control, guys). I tried it. It had a retaining doohickey that dug into my inside lower gums, making them sore enough that eating an apple later the next day was excruciating. And yet...despite the discomfort, it was the best night of sleep I'd had in years. And no snoring for the first time in years, reported my long-suffering wife.
So, I did what apparently they tell you not to do in the instructions I never got: I took scissors and trimmed the plastic doohickey a little bit at a time until it didn't hurt my gums any more. Voila. Solved the problem. And now, several weeks later, I'm still sleeping deeply without snoring. My patience, concentration and mood are vastly improved, and I believe the apnea is under control.
I'm surprised, amazed, and very grateful. Best cheesy-named bit of plastic I've bought in years.
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