Taking care of yourself means making decisions and adopting behaviors and habits that allow you to maintain a physical and mental balance, achieve a certain degree of well-being, and stave off a variety of problems. At the same time, it also means taking care of your health, of yourself as a whole. But just taking care of yourself doesn’t mean that health problems won’t occur, and those problems can sometimes serve as warnings that shouldn’t be ignored. When possible, treating these problems is a must. Otherwise, you might be setting yourself up for serious consequences on your health, life, and well-being.

This becomes an even greater challenge when the treatment that is meant to solve your problem comes with its own set of side effects. They can negatively impact your quality of life—something that you want to maintain and have dedicated so much effort to over time. Sometimes, taking care of your health can mean neglecting part of your well-being.

A difficult decision

Health risks increase exponentially when patients abandon a treatment that is difficult to adapt to or stick with because the immediate side effects are too noticeable, take over, and make them forget about the consequences of stopping their treatment.

When patients are able to make an informed decision about whether or not to continue treatment, this decision is clearly personal. When patients decide to stick to their treatment, they might be resigning themselves to a life of side effects that can be difficult to put up with or manage. When patients decide to give up on treatment, they also have to live with the consequences, which are often more serious over the short term. Patients might make their decision based on difficulties they can’t overcome or because of a lack of other options. It’s no one’s place to judge.

The issue of sleep apnea

This kind of catch-22 is often brought up for people diagnosed with sleep apnea who have to integrate CPAP therapy into their everyday lives to avoid the serious consequences that can arise if their condition is left untreated. In reality, sticking to CPAP therapy is hard. Many people reject it at first, despite how effective it is. What really makes full compliance so difficult, besides the work needed to integrate a new treatment plan into patients’ daily lives, is the discomfort related to wearing a CPAP mask every day. This discomfort is even worse for people with sensitive skin. With no solutions available, many people give up, despite the consequences this has on their health.

Health and well-being can go hand in hand

Researchers are looking for new ways to treat sleep apnea, which is being diagnosed more now than ever before. But research takes time. Companies in this field are all trying to out-innovate each other to develop better, more comfortable CPAP masks. Certain comfort devices are also available to reduce side effects or types of discomfort, but none of them provide a real solution or allow you to truly take care of yourself—and your well-being—while also protecting your health.

Some outside-the-box thinking was needed to find a smarter way to reconcile health and well-being, inform the choices patients have to make in a new way, and provide a solution so that no one is forced to decide to stop treatment, which has such serious implications. To find a third viable option, the problem needed to be examined in a different way: the problem wasn’t the treatment or the mask, it was sensitive skin on the face. That’s what needed protecting, and why not a little pampering, too?

It was this kind of innovative thinking that led to designing and manufacturing the Facembrace, a comfort device that simultaneously alleviates the three main types of discomfort related to wearing a CPAP mask so that the sensitive skin of the face is protected, while also giving you a sense of unprecedented well-being, the feeling that you’re being spoiled and really taken care of, all with your health in mind.

As this new year gets underway, take care of your health and your well-being, without compromising. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or comments. We value your experience, which helps us improve our products and serve you better.