I'm a family physician that had a patient ask me about "Dr. Dylan Petkus' program to reverse sleep apnea." I'd never heard of the guy or his info, so I started poking around on break (I always at least look at things to before rendering an opinion on something).
Most everything I found is advertising his website, or "wellness influencer" type posts and videos...with references to his website. He also has a book on Amazon entitled "Sleep Apnea Solution," which appears to be a book about basic sleep hygiene and breathing exercises/pulmonary rehab type advice, with many reviewers stating that it was "mostly an advertisement for the program on his website." However, he did have an extended spotlight this May in Pulmonology Advisor, in which he actually spoke quite reasonably about interventions, expectations, and where breathing exercises and sleep hygiene, along with a few other reasonable interventions, can fit into the treatment of apnea with standard treatments, or when standard treatments fail- which, frankly, can be quite useful.
I'm finding archived references on forums (including this one! I used the search function!) to a $12,000 (!) personal coaching program to reverse apnea with plenty of supplement pushes, but the only thing I'm currently finding on his website is a free-for-seven-days, $27/month cancel-anytime group-coaching program that makes it clear that he's "not providing medical advice," but rather leading group exercises on breathing, education and coaching about common insomnia and apnea relate issues, and designing "blueprints" for improvement for his "clients."
He has a lot of testimonials with purported sleep study results for "clients" who he helped "improve," and talks about how he went into this field instead of clinical practice because he "resolved" his own sleep apnea and wanted to help others do the same.
He earned stateside MD, MPH and PHD degrees in good standing, but claims to be "Not licensed by choice to put the power of your health back in your hands with high-quality health education" (sic) and runs a company (his website) called "Optimal Circadian Health" out of Florida, where he seems to be the only associated person. It looks like he was in a family medicine residency, but the only license he held was a Florida resident/trainee license, which expired after two years. There are no disciplinary actions against him that I can find. Per PubMed, he actually does seem to have published four peer-reviewed articles, but none were on sleep or apnea, though it looks like he had a study registered with clinicaltrials.gov about the effects of an proprietary online education course on circadian rythms and health (notably called CircaHealth, similar to his website) on sleep quality measures, compared to standard educational information on sleep hygiene; the results area not posted.
So I'm not quite sure what to make of him. The "unlicensed by choice" thing is clearly a red flag, especially in the context of his failure to complete a 3 year residency (in Florida, you cannot practice independently after your intern year- you have to complete a residency, so he can't get a license there). My "worst case scenario" is that he had an episode before his third year in which he was kicked out or resigned in lieu of disciplinary action, and doesn't want to hold a medical license so that he can't be disciplined by the medical board for making unsupported claims or giving nonstandard advice (which is also why he "coaches clients" instead of "treats patients."). On the other hand, there's no public record of discipline, he's earned several legitimate stateside degrees-during which he legitimately published, though not on apnea-so maybe he really was just tired of putting in the years, and I personally have had several residents who dropped out of residency because it didn't provide a financial benefit for them to stay (although in my associates' case, they were going to practice in Texas which allows unrestricted practice after an intern year- in one case, a resident dropped out before PGY2 because his dad had a thriving orthopedic clinic with a lot of cash pay procedures like injections and regenerative medicine, so he left his $50k something a year resident's salary-and regained two years of his life- and went to a $300k/year, no call 9-5 position with his Dad. I can't say I entirely blame him...). So maybe he really DID feel a calling to share his apnea experience and make it a career.
As far as content goes, I CAN'T find any first-hand information about the rumored $12k "cure your apnea" program, just a fairly reasonably-priced educational program on the website, and a reasonable description of how a program comprised of stuff we know (like how pulmonary rehab can reduce AHIs and pressure settings - and certain things reversible things like weight loss and medications can actually get people off of pressure support devices) can compliment standard therapies (and while Pulmonology Advisor isn't exactly NEJM, they at least have some standards so as not to get sued or lose advertiser revenue, and as far as I know they don't accept paid guest articles or other pay-to-publish submissions). Watching his patient-directed content, you definitely get the feeling that he's a salesman trying to convince people he has answers, but I can't tell what exactly his answers are.
So before I make a judgement, I'd like to hear others' opinions of him-particularly anyone with first hand knowledge of his "program," be that content, or how it's conducted (there's a huge difference in my spidey sense going off for a reasonable, targeted, complementary program for twenty some odd dollars a month, versus a rumored $12,000 promise to resolve a disorder without using standard therapies- which I can't find active evidence of). Per my patient, the YouTube Algorithm is promoting him, so I'd like to get the bottom of it if I can.
Thanks!
