u/apost54

I recently got diagnosed with mild sleep apnea by my ENT surgeon after a lifetime of bad sleep. I did a WatchPAT, and my results are in the title. I think this falls closer to UARS, hence why I'm reposting this here. I'm 25, extremely active and in great shape, and have good sleep hygiene, but I struggle with falling asleep and sleep quality. I have the following issues:

• Narrow mandible
• Turbinate hypertrophy
• Chronic rhinitis since I was 9 years old
• Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder
• Bruxism
• Allergies to various things
• Mallampati III airway
• Boggy turbinates and enlarged mucosa
• Deviated septum
• Mild to moderate redundancy of soft palate and uvula
• Various obstructions on a CT scan (Agger nasi cells, Haller cells, etc.)

Basically, my nose and throat are beyond cooked and my airways are likely way floppier than usual due to hypermobility. I am getting an in-lab sleep study in November. However, I'm deeply concerned because the treatment options all seem to have massive tradeoffs:

• Positional therapy: Despite much lower AHI on my side (2.7 vs. 6.5 supine), I am completely unable to fall asleep on my side and I spent 82% of my WatchPAT study on my back. I don't think this will work.
• MAD: Could worsen my jaw clicking, and also just not address anything in my nose.
• Myofunctional therapy: A lot of effort and probably little reward for hypermobile airways. Plus I'd have to find another PT and I'm already in PT a lot for various injuries.
• PAP: My ENT says it's probably not indicated for me. Plus, no shot I can get laid or date with a mask making me look like Darth Vader. I have nothing against the masks or those who wear them, but I don't think it's attractive to most women my age :/
• Nasal surgery: Septoplasty seems to hardly improve sleep and turbinate surgeries... well, even a .1% chance of Empty Nose Syndrome is 1 in 1,000, which means a large hospital would have several patients a year--or month--with it.
• Jaw surgery/MMA/MARPE: Seems promising enough, but I doubt insurance covers it and I'm just a law student--I don't have any money yet.

I've already tried Intake bands and a lot of other lifestyle things and they just don't work. Nasal sprays are useless. I would love Inspire but I don't think I'd qualify through insurance.

I know my concern about PAP may be irrational, but I also don't think I'd tolerate it. In any event... how the hell do I sleep well now? What are my options that I haven't considered that might actually work given my constraints?

I am a pitcher who had the same injury as him in my throwing shoulder last year. Dislocation, torn labrum, surgery—the whole nine yards. I’m now 14 months post-surgery and while I can throw fairly hard (70s, where I used to top out at 80 or so), I am having a lot of arm pain and rotator cuff tendinitis. I know Rainer is raking in the minors, but has anyone seen his arm? He used to pitch, so I’d figure he‘d try very hard to get his velo back to whip it from short.

25M with HSD. Been lifting heavy for 7 years and have no pain because of it. Unfortunately, there is no workout for cortisol. Mine was 14.5 ug/dl at 1:30 PM—well above the 11.9 max in the range. I don’t have immense life stress or anything, I think my body is just producing a shit ton of cortisol because my joints and ligaments are unstable and it wants to stiffen them.

I am on a shit ton of sleep meds, like magnesium glycinate, melatonin, phosphatidylserine, guanfacine, and clonazepam as needed. I barely get by with <7 hours a night and I wake up frequently. I have good sleep hygiene. Is it possible I may have UARS? I don’t have sleep apnea. And what has worked for you guys to lower cortisol?

I dislocated my shoulder last year and tore my labrum, requiring 5 anchors to repair it. 13 months out, I am finally throwing again and may be able to get into the 70s, but I am still struggling with constant cracking in my shoulder and arm pain when throwing at high intensity. I feel like I'm at the end of the road with what I can do myself, but Driveline/Tread/performance PT is legit $500-$1000+ a month.

I'm just an average Joe looking to pitch in a rec baseball league and have a catch with my future kids; I'm not trying to rehab to become a pro, so I'd like to not spend an arm and a leg on this. I am currently based in NYC for the summer, and will return to DC in the fall for my last year of law school. Do I have any decent options? I am very skeptical of PT because they often sit me in a corner and have me do band work, which is completely useless as I lift heavy enough to where that's not challenging. I've read HSS is good, but any personal experiences would be very helpful.

I’m a 24M who has played basketball and baseball since I was a young kid and intend to keep doing so as long as possible. I learned from my surgeon last May that I am hypermobile. I have not been able to procure a JHS/HSD diagnosis yet, but I have many symptoms. I have a 5/9 Beighton at least; a subluxed shoulder in 2024 and dislocation in 2025 (surgeon was for that); spondylolisthesis (I had lower back pain at 10); chronic ankle laxity; extremely flexible with no training; my body runs on adrenaline such that sleep is very hard for me; and I have autism and ADHD. 

In any case, I have still managed to be in fairly good shape in spite of this. I had a 37-inch vertical jump at my peak (could dunk at 6 feet tall), I could squat close to 300, bench 225, and deadlift like 430; again, would be higher, but it’s hard to recover from shoulder surgery. I also could throw 80+ MPH in baseball with bad mechanics; I'm sure I could throw harder if I did it with better training.

Right now, I'm in PT for Achilles tendinitis which has finally seemed to resolve after months of PT. Before, I was in PT for my shoulder in the latter half of 2025 and after my subluxation in September 2024. Before that, I've been in PT for lower back pain and spondy-related stuff in 2021 and 2023. I feel like I freaking live in PT, frankly, yet I still am hurt ALL THE TIME. I am 24 years old with the athleticism of a college athlete in some ways and the joints of an 80 year old.  

I also feel like I'm playing whac-a-mole with injuries - one winds down and then I get another. The latest one is when I failed a squat bizarrely and set the safeties too low and got crushed because I am an idiot who didn't consider I would ever fail lifts again. I wasn't even squatting that heavy, just 225 for reps ATG. I’ve been battling 3/10 lower back pain for 2.5 weeks and it hasn’t really gotten away. And I really do not want to go to PT… AGAIN. It’s not a matter of insurance, it’s that I don’t want to be chasing injuries nonstop.

So… does anyone have any suggestions on how I can fix this?