If you’ve spent any amount of time with me, you probably have heard me coughing. One time I was with a long time friend and I apologized to her for my bad cough and she replied, “You always cough John. We’re used to it.” Little did I knew that I was so congested from allergies that I coughed all the time and those around me just got used to it. Sure, some times of year were worse than others, but I had a chronic cough. I started trying Claritin which led to Allegra and then found Zyrtec worked the best. At least it took the edge off and made it better, but never fully solved the congestion and cough.
What can I say? This is the life of an allergy sufferer. Yes, there are some nasal sprays that can help too. I’ve tried all of these options with varying degrees of success. Turns out, I’m not alone. The CDC says that 1 in 3 adults suffer from allergies.
With this background, it’s no surprise that I was intrigued by an email I received that talked about an FDA-approved wearable for nasal congestion (SONU is indicated for the relief of moderate to severe nasal congestion due to allergic and non allergic rhinitis.). The wearable is called SONU and is from a company called SoundHealth. Their background story is interesting. Their founder was a successful tech executive and had similar issues to me. He went to a leading doctor to address his allergies and congestion and asked what he could do to address the congestion once and for all. Unfortunately, the doctor only had the solutions I mentioned above which would provide only partial relief. This led SoundHealth’s founder to research if there was a better way to address his allergies and congestion.
His search led him to something called Acoustic Resonance Therapy. You can read the research and other resources on this here. My non-medical cliff notes version of it is that studies have shown that humming has proven to show some benefits associated with reduced nasal congestion. Therefore, could they create a device that mimics humming in order to provide relief from nasal congestion?
Thus, SONU was born.
SoundHealth sent me a free SONU device to try out. Along with the SONU band is an iPhone app that works together with the band to treat nasal congestion. All you do is open the SONU app on your iPhone and it will scan your face to personalize your therapy. Then, you put the SONU device on your head like a headband. Once you click start, the SONU band gently vibrates your forhead. In their studies they had their patients do SONU twice a day for 15 minutes each time which produced significant nasal congestion relief. However, the relief started earlier than 2 weeks.
My wife and I were excited to try it out and we both were amazed with how well it worked. Even after the initial treatments I could start to feel the congestion dissapating. I’ve felt this before because my allergies are really bad around animals. After I spend a few days near animals, when I leave I can feel the congestion start to clear. Using the SONU created a very similar feeling even though I was only moderately congested by my standards.
For both of us, after using the device for a week straight, the congestion was basically gone along with my annoying cough. As time continued on, my wife saw such congestion relief she wondered if maybe it was working too well since it had dried everything out. As mentioned, I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV or this site, but it was pretty amazing to see how much relief the SONU offered our congestion.
There were some interesting quirks to the SONU band. The first has to do with pairing the device with your phone. It uses Bluetooth to pair. Sometimes it loses the pairing and I have to pair it again. Not a huge deal once you’ve done it a few times. Also, the app is really only designed for one person. I’m sure they’ll incorporate user profiles that remember your face scan eventually, but haven’t yet. Since my wife and I both wanted to use it under the same profile, we generally had to re-scan our face (10-15 seconds max) each time we used it. If you’re a solo user or when they get multiple profiles, you won’t have the slight inconvenience of scanning your face each time.
Also, since the SONU is kind of just acting as a bluetooth speaker attached to your phone to create the vibrations, you don’t want to start doing other things on your phone during the treatment. If you do, sometimes SONU will stop the treatment and starting playing the audio from a video you just pulled up on your phone. Not a huge problem though, but funny and surprising the first time it happens.
The biggest problem with the SONU band is that there’s currently no Android version. I’m told that one is in the works and they’re hoping to have it out next year. Given the face scan, I imagine they’re having a challenge doing the face scan properly across the wide number of Android devices out there. The lower end Android devices probably don’t have good enough cameras for the face scan.
For me as an Android user, this is quite disappointing. My wife loves it because that means she gets to keep the SONU since she has the iPhone. Unfortunately, because of my travel that means I’m only getting random SONU treatments. The good news is that the congestion builds back up over time, but if I go too long I really feel it and can’t wait to do the treatments again.
Needless to say, my wife and I are fans and I can’t wait for the Android version. I do hope they get a little better form factor. It’s not the best looking thing when you’re wearing it, but that’s a small price to pay for congestion relief. I love seeing little innovations like this one that leverage research and tech to solve a problem that many of us experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment