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History of Snore Guard

Dr. Marvin B. Hays, an orthopedic surgeon and the co-inventor of Snore Guard, had steadily worsening problems with snoring from the 1960s. At first, his wife simply used a "white noise" maker to help drown out the snoring. On nights when that didn't work, she moved to another room to sleep. Dr. Hays had nasal surgery in the 1970s, which helped for awhile. Then, after he broke his neck in an accident in the 1980s, his snoring became more serious. He consulted a sleep clinic for treatment of sleep apnea. He constructed a home-made continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device powered by a vacuum cleaner motor and used it for a time. (His wife said the noise was as bad as the snoring.) He tried surgery, but scarring inside his throat eliminated the initial benefit, and the snoring -- and exhaustion -- returned. Then he began to think about a mouthpiece to hold the jaw and keep the airway open during sleep. His wife, Dr. Mildred Hays, an anesthesiologist, had noticed that his jaw was open and back during sleep.

Working with Albuquerque dentist Thomas Meade, Dr. Hays tried version after version of the mouthpiece, testing them on himself. He and Dr. Meade experimented with different dental materials and designs until one worked. They began producing mouthpieces at a small manufacturing plant in Colorado, and Dr. Meade began to sell them to interested patients in 1989. Snore Guard was born.