Sleep Study Results

Ethan's primary pediatrician at Children's once remarked that Ethan is "full of surprises". Case in point: the sleep study. Given that Ethan has mandibular hypoplasia (shortened jaw) and therefore a crowded/tight airway, coupled with his laryngomalacia (basically soft floppy tissue in the larynx), he fully expected to see something in the sleep study results indicating sleep apnea or something similar.

True to form, Ethan pulled a fast one on everyone: his sleep study was perfectly fine! There was nothing abnormal in the readings at all! This actually surprised the doctor quite a bit. In his experience, children that are sent from Craniofacial to have a sleep study almost always have sleep apnea. The fact that Ethan has no signs of it is extremely encouraging.

He believes that Ethan's noisy breathing is most likely due to the laryngomalacia almost exclusively. We have talked to his otolaryngologist about this before and her opinion was that it was not enough of an issue to do anything about. Should it become a larger issue, she said it was basically an in-clinic procedure to simply laser the excess tissue away.

The doctor did note that since he has all these anatomical issues, he will be more prone to developing sleep apnea in the future. On the other hand, since he will continue to grow, it is also possible that as he gets bigger, his airway issues will also improve. So the overall odds of him developing sleep apnea are pretty much 50/50. This is just something we will need to watch for over time (increased snoring, less restful sleep, etc).

The doctor said he would talk with his primary Craniofacial pediatrician about the results. Since the news was entirely good, we expect that today was Ethan's last Children's appointment until the summer of 2011 (at which point he will have a regular Craniofacial followup and a regular eye exam by ophthalmology). At very most, we may have a follow up with his Craniofacial pediatrician but I doubt it since there are no issues to be discussed.

- bob