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Going to shocking measures to get a good night's sleep
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A local man snores so bad, he turns to a tongue tazer to fix it. Video by tmj4.com
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MILWAUKEE - We first introduced you to Dan Gutzmann last year. He snores a lot. In fact, his snoring was so bad he decided to go to shocking measures to get a good night's sleep.
The push of a button gives Dan something he's always wanted.
"I hold it over the device, which is right here, and I push the 'on' button. It beeps at me, gives a jolt, waits 30 minutes and then starts working," Dan says.
Last February, Dan's snoring was annoying his family and hurting his health. He tried everything to stop, but nothing worked. So he enrolled in a study at the Medical College of Wisconsin to test a new cure--a tazer in his tongue!
Here's how it works. An electronic probe is grafted to the nerves in the underside of the tongue, and another placed in the lung. Both are connected to a battery in the patients chest, when the airway closes and they start to snore. Then an electric charge shocks the nerves, stimulating the muscles in the tongue and opening the airway.
"They started calling me Robodan at work. They think I'm a cyborg," Dan jokes.
Its sounds like science fiction, but for Dan and his family, fiction has become a true bedtime story that guarantees a good night's sleep.
"It's definitely not the way I thought it would feel. To me, in the end, it doesn't matter because it works," Dan beams.
Dan is one of 5 people in the Milwaukee area who are part of this study to get FDA approval. Initial results look promising but official data won't be released until Spring, and the device itself probably won't be available for years.
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