I started working on the design and manufacturing of nasal plugs which will aim to increase nasal resistance, increase airflow velocity and therefore increase WSS and ultimately nasal sensation. For the moment I have designed and manufactured a first fairly small prototype, the cylinders are 4 mm in diameter so that it can enter my nasal cavity. I am currently working on other shapes and other sizes which I will present later in the article.
I have 3 constraints for the choice of materials.
So after a lot of research I found this material.
It is a biodegradable material made with oyster shell powder, it is certified endocrine disruptors free and it has a shore hardness of 93A which is flexible but still a bit hard. But it is not certified for contact with mucosa yet, I asked Nanovia about that and they said that they have not the certificate but it is possible to have it certified if I want and I pay for that.
I'm still searching a softness material certified biocompatible, but it is not easy to find.
I designed two different shapes, one cylindrical and the other oblong.
The oblong shape aims to fill more space of the nasal cavity while maintaining the possibility of entering in it. Indeed the anterior part of the nasal cavity can be narrow.
For each shape I designed 2 sizes, one in 4 mm of diameter and a length of the tips of 12 mm.
The other with the diameter of 5 mm and the length of the tips of 20 mm. So 4 versions in total. But of course I can design what I want. It is just the the beginning of the project.
I just would like to share with you a device that I made. It is a syringe pump. Often during the night, our nose becomes dry, so we can use a humidifier. It works but has its limits. So I have designed this syringe pump in order to inject physiologic serum into the nasal cavities all night. You can set the quantity injected and the time between each injection. Ant that's it.I made a GitHub to share with you all you need to make your one syringe pump (3d parts, links to mechanical and electronic parts, electronic schematic, and code).https://github.com/aurerum/OpenSourceSyringePump
I use it for one month and it helps me to sleep, it is not a huge improvement but it is a welcome one. So, what do you think about this?
In the previous article I showed you a device for visualize your breathing. In this article I will show you how to use it as a sleep breathing recorder in order to detect hypopnea and apnea.
For it, I have just connected the microcontroller arduino to the PC with a USB cable and use two software. One for recorded the breathing curve and one for read it. The first soft is coolTerm it recorded the pressure data in a .csv file. The second is a web app called chart studio ploty which can read easily and quickly the .csv file. You can also read the .csv file with Excel but it is slow to open.
This is the breathing curve in chart studio ploty, you can zoom and navigate in order to see the entirely night sleep and detect apnea events. The y axis (vertical) represent the pressure in Pascal (pa), the x axis represent the time but the unit is not second nor millisecond. However, you can estimate the time by the frequency of breathing, at night we breathe around 10 time per minute, so one breath every 6 second.
The main problem is that you should count every apnea manually, there is no algorithm to do that. In sleep clinic they use a dedicated software to count apnea and hypopnea, they also have others data like brain waves, sound, oxygen saturation and others things. Maybe at home you can complete this device with an oxygen saturation recorder.
That's it for this article ...
Currently, a researcher from Ohio university drive an ENS study which consist of breathing visualization in order to tell to the brain that even we don't feel airflow we are currently breathing air.
The technique of breathing consist of breath near a mirror for seen the fog created by our breathing.
I directly thought that it was an interesting idea. So thanks to her for this.
So with this idea I have "created" a device for see, hear and feel our breathing. I think that if more senses are stimulated then maybe our brain will understand better that we are currently breathing air. It is just a theory I'm not a scientist.
Also, I have a hope that those simulations can increase the breathing command drive.
As you know, ENS can create dyspnea and decrease the breathing command drive due to the lack of stimulation of the mechanical and temperature (TRP) receptors in the nasal mucosa. These phenomena also create the central sleep apnea.
The device is made with a pressure sensor (1), a nasal cannula (2), a LED (3) and a fan (4) linked to a microcontroller (5), the operation is very simple. When the pressure is negative (inspiration), the LED and the fan are turned ON. When the pressure is positive (expiration), the LED and the fan are turned OFF.
It is just as simple as this.
The fan is placed near the skin in order to feel the airflow, I don't know which part of the body is the more appropriate to feel this airflow.
I also don't know if there is any sense to place a fan near the skin when the brain is waiting the mucosa receptor signals. It is maybe a completely no sense.
Maybe in the future I will send the airflow in the nasal cavity via a pipe but it is more complicated and the airflow can dry the mucosa.
I will write an article in order to tell you the eventual results and the possible improvement of the device.
Keep in mind that I'm not a scientist and this device is possibly useless.
If some of you are interested, I will do a short tutorial to show you how made the device and where buy the components.
