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My doctor wanted me to go and have a sleep test where you go and you spend the night. And I had told him that I would never be able to wear one of those. I did not want the C-pap because I’m extremely claustrophobic that stems from me being caught in an elevator when I was younger. Even people mentioning that C-pap would give me anxiety.

So I talked to my sister and she said she has the same problem. And she showed me the mouth guard that she’d gotten from her dentist and that she was using it and her husband said she never snored anymore.

So I said, “Well, when I get home, I am going to ask Dr. Ross about it.” And unbeknownst to me, he has the program here.

It’s explained extremely well. They answer any questions. And it just was an easy process. They just made it so easy and understandable and explained the whole test. And I do not wake up with dry mouth anymore. I don’t wake up gasping for breath and I, overall, just have a better night’s sleep.

Well, Dr. Ross said he was working on these sleep apnea devices, that he had one himself, and it worked really well. He asked me how I was sleeping, and I said, “Well, I get up in the middle of the night sometimes too, and I have a hard time sleeping.” Then he asked me if I snore, and, of course, I said, “Well, I don’t snore,” but when I asked my wife, she said, “Yeah, you do snore and things too.” So not only was I not sleeping well, but I was keeping her up too.

So he asked if I wanted to try this, and I did some research on it. It seemed really interesting, so I did try it. I bring it in every time I had a cleaning, and he’d tweak it for me, and adjust it, and things too. It works really well. I can sleep really well, and I’m refreshed when I wake up in the morning.

It’s similar if your children have worn braces, and they have a retainer. It’s similar to a retainer, but a little bit thicker, a little bit hardier, and it’s got two adjustments on it. What it does is it props the top of your jaw open so your mouth never fully closes. Your lips can seal over it, but when you’re sleeping like this, you’re back, and your mouth can stay open a little bit so you don’t snore. It’s a very simple device, but it just works really, really well.

Dr. Ross does a great job too. When I was at another dentist, and I had a crown done, he had to go back three or four times to fix, where Dr. Ross does it perfectly the first time. He’s not satisfied till it’s just absolute perfection. The suppliers that he uses for crowns and things like that, it really shows uses the best equipment, newest technologies, and the best implements and stuff like that too for crowns and things too. They always work really well.

Since I’ve gotten the sleep appliance, I just have more energy and also, I don’t have the pain in my jaw so those combined just make my life a lot easier. I was hoping they would work because I really did not want a CPAP machine. Both my sisters have that and I don’t like to be tied up to a machine. So this lets me just have an appliance like a retainer that I can put in my mouth. It takes a couple of nights to get used to, but after that, you’re all good and you don’t want to leave home without it.

He has helped me by reducing my pain in my jaw, and my head, and my shoulders. And I get a good night’s sleep now and I don’t need a nap in the afternoon. And I’m not hearing from my husband, “Breathe, breathe” in the middle of the night. He was waking me up because I wasn’t breathing and I don’t get that anymore. I would definitely say, do it. Visit Dr. Ross. He is on the cutting edge of everything out there. He takes the time to talk to you and really listen to you. And he gets it until it’s done, until it’s perfect.

When somebody doesn’t have good sleep, it really reaches into every part of your life. And my husband is one of those individuals that really, really needs his sleep and doesn’t function well.

And when his sleep was interrupted, it was affecting him at work. It was affecting his mood, which affected our whole household. He was hitting that three o’clock slump really badly at work because he just wasn’t getting enough rest at night.

He was very excited to hear about the treatment from Dr. Ross because Dr. Ross had experienced the same difficulties and was finding success. And shared his experience with my husband and my husband was very excited to know that there was finally something that would help the struggles that he was having that didn’t involve any medication or anything of that sort.

It was a little bit of a ramp up at the beginning getting used to it and coming back for adjustments. And Dr. Ross has been very a ton of with adjustments that my husband’s required and getting it set just right, so that it was working well for him.

Now that he’s sleeping through the night, guess what? I’m sleeping through the night. I’m not waking up at two o’clock and three o’clock in the morning. So we’re both waking up feeling much better.

It took time. Every night it was a few more hours, a few more hours, and then he was able to wear it through the night. He got used to it, and the stretches of sleep got longer. And for the most part he is pretty much sleeping through the night now.

And everything is a lot better for both of us. We both feel better. We both feel more energetic. We both feel more rested.

My wife, I think it’s probably a common occurrence, was the first one to notice it. She said, “Hey, you’ve been snoring a lot lately.” And I never had been a traditional snorer, so to speak. She pointed out. She said, ” There’s times where you seem like you stop breathing for a little while during that.” That’s what led me to explore it a little further, as far as if I should be looking for some sort of treatment. I was fortunate enough that Dr. Ross brought this up and said that it was something that you can treat in a different way than I had heard of in the past. Because I had some friends years ago, we were on a vacation at a golf trip or something and he had one of those C-PAK machines and you got to lug it around and it’s kind of loud at night. And so it was nice to know that they do have some alternatives now.

There’s was harm in trying it in my mind. And if it didn’t do the trick and I had to do something more extreme with a C-PAK machine or whatever, then so be it. But I was fortunate enough that this in fact worked for me. And my wife tells me that I am not storing near as much, if at all. And I think I’m probably sleeping a little better than I had before too. So I guess in that regards, I maybe have a little more energy now. And the most important thing is that I’m not stopping my breathing in the middle of the night for 45 seconds or some longer than normal period of time.

Everybody is great. Been treated very, very nicely. So I came in, Zack explained everything. I did SnoreLab and there were strange noises that evening. And I just wondered if there was a ghost in the bedroom or not, and it was me. My husband has told me that it’s working. I’m not snoring. He’s not hearing the strange noises. So I’m more restful, I guess. Usually, around three o’clock in the afternoon, everybody starts doing this. But at three o’clock, I’m still up high. So I think it obviously is helping. And I want to stay around. I have two grandchildren that I want to see grow up. So I plan on being here for awhile. And hopefully, this helps. It adds on years. I mean, they’re very hospitable and professional. And it’s been great, the whole experience. I would recommend it to anyone that’s having those strange noises in the middle of the night.

I think I had the… Especially coming here, the big problem I had was sleep. I used to snore a lot. I think most human beings do, but mine used to sound probably like a bear. My wife used to say that that’s a lot. That puts a strain on marriage too. But more than that, I also started feeling that I was getting more tired. When I first came here and met Dr. James Ross and also Zach, the most important thing that impressed me was the honesty. They didn’t promise magic. They were very clear of what sleep apnea is and how far the treatment can go. It can also go with my own practice of using the appliances that they would give. But they were very precise in understanding what the problem is. It tailored-made solutions for me which they said, “Okay. If you don’t like this, then how would we go on a step plan?”

I like their honesty, I like their simplicity in stating the facts. I think there’s a lot of integrity in what they do. Understanding sleep apnea also started making me understand why I get tired, why I feel sleepy when I’m driving my car, why I fall asleep while watching the TV. The biggest change that I feel that I’ve benefited is that I’m more fresh. I think my body gets more oxygen much, I think, faster. I’ve always been an athletic guy and now I see that that’s coming in action. I think the energy that I’ve got from the appliance and also advising me to go to an ENT specialist to treat something that they wouldn’t treat, I think that’s the biggest benefit. I think they make you feel more easy and there’s no pressure on, “Okay. There’s a tight schedule.” It’s not a project management. I think that’s what I like. Dr. James comes by and says, “Okay, Amar. Is everything fine? Are we taking care of you? You need that when you’re getting treated, so I like this place and the people here.

I was diagnosed with sleep apnea maybe 20 years ago. I didn’t breathe for 60 times in an hour, so it was very hard for me to breathe. The machine is okay, but the problem with the machine is that if you’re sleepy and you put it on, it wakes you up. It’s just hard to navigate sleeping with this big machine thing breathing in your… You move, you’ve got to adjust it. It’s cumbersome. You use it most of the time, but sometimes you don’t. I was like, “Wait a minute, there has to be something different.” I looked him up, I looked up on his website, and the information they gave me over the phone, I was like, “Oh, this is wonderful. Okay, let me make an appointment.” And I came here, and he’s like, “Oh, Ian, you don’t have to use the machine anymore.” I was like, “Oh.” Regardless if you’re sleepy or not, it’s very comfortable. Since I’ve been wearing it, I know I’ve been getting deep sleep because I dream so much now. I wake up feeling so much better, and I know I’m dreaming longer. It’s just been a wonderful benefit for me to wear the mouth guard.

I know a lot of guys that’s on that mission and they don’t like it at all. Those are the people that I recommended it, to say, “Hey, listen, you don’t have to go that route.” I did a sleep test, of course, and it used to be you have to go into a room strapped up with all these kind of stuff to your head, which makes it hard to sleep. I come here, and he’s like, “Oh, no, no, no, we have the latest technology. You just wear something on your wrist, and you can go to sleep naturally.” I was like, “Oh, that is wonderful because that’s what I was expecting again.” He’s like, “No, no, no, we have the latest technology where you don’t have to do all of that.” I just think he’s a wonderful guy, and I iterate, also his staff.

I have a lot of medical issues. So I have been, for the last 20 years, going back and forth to doctors, hospital. And he is one of the best, very personable. This is the place to be. It’s not just the medical stuff. It’s the personality. He’s very relatable. It’s not just about here. Here’s a device to help you sleep. Here’s a device to do this and that. He actually talks to you, talks about our background, talks about anything, which is really nice, because what it comes to do, it relaxes you. A lot of patients come into the doctor’s office or the hospital. They’re very tense. And it’s like, okay, what’s going to happen? What am I going to hear? So he puts you at ease. And he’s a very kind person. I must iterate, too. His staff is also great. Everyone that I have talked to, dealt with, been great.

As far as the sleep appliance goes, what my problem was is I was snoring. I also felt that I was having some sinus problems, allergy-like, you know, I’d be stuffed up when I get up in the morning and just not feel good. And Jim pointed out that it might be need of a sleep appliance, and they gave me the testing and everything and I needed one. And I wore it and within a day or two, it resolved the problem. I went with three of my buddies on vacation for a couple days visiting and one of them had a CPAP machine and you could hear it. And he slept in another room and I looked at him and I just said, “I’m not doing that.” Well, Jim talked to me about the sleep device. The empathy along with his tendency toward trying to be a perfectionist work good together to me. He cares about me and he’s going to do the best job he can do.

Diane B.

I get a good night sleep now, and I don’t need a nap in the afternoon, and I’m not hearing from my husband, “Breathe. Breathe.” In the middle of the night, he was waking me up, because I wasn’t breathing, and I don’t get that anymore.

Sean C.

My wife tells me that I am not snoring near as much, if at all, and I think I’m probably sleeping a little better than I have before, too, so I would guess, in that regards, maybe I have a little more energy now, and the most important thing is that I’m not stopping my breathing in the middle of the night.

Carol B.

They answer any questions, and it just was an easy process. They just made it so easy and understandable and explained the whole test, and I do not wake up with dry mouth anymore. I don’t wake up gasping for breath, and I overall just have a better night’s sleep.

Griffin Burr

Very helpful staff, really made me feel welcome for my time there. Zac especially was wonderful, he was such a gentleman. Will definitely come back and recommend to all my friends.

Tim G

My visit went very well, they are very thorough with explaining everything to you and that made me feel real comfortable. Not some one trying to rush you and just a in and out type of facility.

Colleen Newman

Very professional, caring office. Zach explained everything thoroughly, satisfying all my questions and more. Additionally, given my work is somewhat hectic, they were very flexible in setting my appointments. I would definitely recommend this office and their services to anybody!

lacey tatum

My 1st time experience was perfect!! Everyone was so friendly and made me feel comfortable soon as I walked in the door. I was seen by Zac he’s AWESOME!!!

The WhittSmith Way

Amazing Staff! Very straight forward, right to the point. I would definitely recommend them for your sleep apnea needs.

Jennifer James

Every step of the process was a breeze. Zac was so thorough I didn’t have any questions. He’s easy to talk to and professional. Highly recommend!

Mike Gwizdz

The Sleep Apnea Center of Novi is awesome. The staff is friendly and supportive of your needs. The experience was great from beginning to end. Couldn’t ask for anything more.