Joe and Krzysztof met for the first time in the Medical Informatics master’s program at UMIT Tirol. They share a common interest in health technology. Although both are technical founders (and history shows that’s not a bad thing at all ;p), their skills complement each other in a unique way.
Founders
Imagine how your perspective, mindset, health, and well-being could change after over three decades of living with a permanently congested nose (and mouth breathing), — always feeling like a fish stranded on the beach: still alive but unable to swim nor respire freely — how your life would change when you would fix it. I was very fortunate, I fix this problem for myself and now I want to help others.
It is not possible to express that with written words what kind of change it was for me. Even saying it loud is simply not enough;p. It became my privilege, obligation and opportunity to share simple facts about breathing habits that can dramatically improve people's lives.
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.
Origins of RespireLabs
Imagine living with permanently congested nose and mouth breathing. Feeling like a fish stranded on the beach. Alive but unable to swim nor respire freely. This was the lifelong struggle of RespireLabs project initiator, Krzysztof Dąbrowski, who for over three decades was a chronic mouth breather. Throughout the years mouth breathing caused him 28 health issues: starting from permanent throat inflammation through problem with swallowing to waking up at night suffocating – that turned out to be sleep apnea.
For 30 years he’s been looking for a medical help. He visited an ENT doctor (Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist; German: HNO) for the first time at the age of 9, taken by his grandmother.
What DIDN’T work:
- Antiallergic drugs like Zyrtec (1990s).
- ENT surgical procedures:
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- Conchoplasty – a reduction of turbinates in nose (2000s).
- Endoscopic sinus surgery – removing inflammation in sinuses (2016).
- Septoplasty – correcting deviated septum (2017).
What SOLVED the problem:
In 2022, the 28 problems (including sleep apnea) started to disappear when the project initiator discovered so called Buteyko method – breathing exercises that open congested nose and help to switch from mouth to nose breathing. After 6 months of daily practice he became fulltime nose breather – during the day only at that time.
Mouth breathing detection app
In 2023, sleep was still a challenge. Despite healthy nose breathing during the day, his mouth would always open while sleeping. He started wondering: „How do I know what happens to my breathing during sleep?”. Because he is an educated programmer he wrote a simple mobile app based on primitive acoustic-AI trained on his mouth and nose breathing sounds. The app was able to count the number of mouth exhales.
During this period, he was living near Innsbruck. He met a director of a local Health Hub – Dr. Klaus Weinberger. After a few meetings and presenting the app, the project initiator realised that detecting breathing events during sleep is a business idea and the sleep apnea is one of the biggest problems in healthcare. The RespireLabs startup idea was born.
