6 weeks in, no improvement whatsoever, losing all hope.

[y08hci0299]

I have been on cpap for 6 weeks(1.5 months now) and I still haven't gotten used to it. Trust me, I've tried many different setups, I have probably found the one that is the most comfortable for me personally,, so trying a new mask/new machine/new chinstrap or whatever won't work. It's not so much the sensation or this particular mask that's bothering me(I use an airfit p10 the least bothersome mask of all) it's moreso the entire experience of cpap that's just been a complete chore. The longest I've slept with it on is 4 hrs, followed by 2 hrs 45 min, other than that everry single night has been 30min, 1hr, 1.5 hrs, 2hrs, some nights I can't even stand it on my face. Most nights it's less than 2 hrs before I wake up. I'm cranky as all hell, depressed and suicidal, and it's not just using cpap that's the challenge at this point, it's just functioning, getting through the day, and having the will to live. I fantasise about giving up and suicide constantly. I see a psychiatrist and psychotherapist regularly, have been in therapy for years, have tried different psychiatric drugs(antidepressants/antianxiety meds) nothing is working. Everything boils down to the quality of my sleep and nothing is working. My body just refuses to cooperate with cpap. I read stories of people who take 6 months/7 months/a year or multiple years to literally get a full nights sleep on it. There was even one user who posted in 2005 that he tried everything and was finally giving up, and in 2015 he posted again saying that he was trying and still getting used to it. 10 years..... I don't want to sound like a spoiled whiny child, that refuses to keep trying or refuses to be patient, I'm just afraid that I won't be alive in 3 months or 6 months because I might be tempted to end it. The fatigue and accompanying deepression has left me disabled, I live at home, I don't work, thank goodness I come from a good family who can afford to take care of me in this time. My sister even told me that she has been going through therapy to prepare brace herself mentally just in case she has to deal with me killing myself; this ordeal has taken a huge toll on myself and my family. I don't even know if this is a cry for help or just ranting.

[TASmart]

Sounds like your issues go beyond that of sleep apnea, but to see what's going on what did your sleep study show? How about what your titration shows? Do you current treatment results match your titration results?

You can download a free software called sleepyhead it's free to use and is listed along with a tutorial in the section of posts above the user posts.

Then follow direction to post your results so people can see how your treatment looks. You may not have SA related sleep issues, or there may be adjustments the long term members can suggest. But they gotta see the data.

[EdNerd]

CPAP was never meant to be a cure for insomnia, depression, anxiety, or anything else like that. It's a therapy used to correct breathing problems while you sleep - that's all. Along the way, there are a lot of adjustments that do have to be made, and some people have an easier time than others making the adjustments.

Like sleeping with something trying to eat your face, or shove a hurricane up your nose. What to do about the noise or the hose or the air leaks. And a hundred other things (my count might be slightly off on the low side!). Very few people can bring home a mask and machine, slap it all on, and fall asleep the fist time every time.

Often, taking care of the breathing problems allows other sleeps problems to begin to manifest. And expecting too much of CPAP while not factoring in the difficulties of using it will definitely increase anxiety. Which, of course, adversely affects sleep, which in turn piles onto your sleep-deprivation anxiety -- and around and around we go!!

I'm not at all making fun of your predicament! Just because someone else doesn't suffer like you do does not mean your suffering is meaningless or unreal! If it's affecting your quality of life, it is very, very real - and important!

But it can also help to put things is perspective: namely, CPAP will only help your sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) - and that might not touch the *real* reason you're having sleep issues. In fact, using CPAP can bring in a whole new set of anxieties and problems - which is frustrating because you're expecting it to make your problems better! But in helping your SDB, CPAP can put you on a better road than it's been on before. I found out my O2 was dropping into the 70s and making me a candidate for a heart attack. At that point, the frustrations of learning to use it became very small compared to the benefit of using it. I fought through the issues, because not breathing was just not going to happen again!

Your sister might better use her therapy time by dragging you along and letting someone give you strategies for coping with this.

Last thought: you've spent some time going through the posts here, and so you know you're not alone with your problems. What you might NOT read here are the people who STILL have anxieties or other problems, but are still powering on every night against the mask monster. That's because they've come to terms with it: "you can give me nightmares, but you will never again steal my breath or heartbeats!"

Good luck!
Ed

[Julie]

Well we can probably help with the Cpap stuff if we have some idea of what's what - like which model of what machine (not just "Resmed' plse) do you use? Which mask? At what pressure settings? Are you using the ramp feature? Set up how?

What meds do you take routinely?

What about alcohol?

All the above would help us to help you - give us the chance.

[y08hci0299]

Sounds like your issues go beyond that of sleep apnea, but to see what's going on what did your sleep study show? How about what your titration shows? Do you current treatment results match your titration results?

You can download a free software called sleepyhead it's free to use and is listed along with a tutorial in the section of posts above the user posts.

Then follow direction to post your results so people can see how your treatment looks. You may not have SA related sleep issues, or there may be adjustments the long term members can suggest. But they gotta see the data.

I do use sleepyhead and monitor my numbers every night. The good news is that it does reduce my numbers significantly, I found a pressure when I can get 0 to about 2.5 RDI. The problem is compliance.

[Oltremare]

Compliance is closely linked to the comfort of therapy.
After 6 weeks I wasn't at all capable of managing my therapy and I needed a lot of help.
Friends of this forum have offered me many tips with great generosity.
Sometimes small fixes make a big difference.
If you think you can manage your therapy without the need for advice, we will never be able to help you.
The only help we can give you is the possible corrections to your settings but to do so, you should share your data with experienced friends in this forum.
For now we can only offer you friendship and understanding for you.
Good luck

Oltremare

[y08hci0299]

Well we can probably help with the Cpap stuff if we have some idea of what's what - like which model of what machine (not just "Resmed' plse) do you use? Which mask? At what pressure settings? Are you using the ramp feature? Set up how?

What meds do you take routinely?

What about alcohol?

All the above would help us to help you - give us the chance.

I use the Dreamstation Bipap auto but I am currently experimenting with using either the cpap or fixed bipap setting because the auto adjusting pressure actually disturbs my sleep and gives me more events. I usually use pressure of about 10-11. the bipap takes a bit of getting used to as well because the thing about this machine is that the transition between pressures is not smooth, when I exhale it takes a split second for the pressure to go down, so it feels like my mask is 'inflating' and blowing up against my nose if that makes sense, I have tried all the biflex/EPR/rise time settings and none seem to improve the responsiveness of the machine. Not sure if it's just the algorithm or if all machines are like that, used a resmed airsense 10 before and I didn't seem to have this problem. I use the airfit p10 along with a chin strap to keep my mouth closed. Not using the ramp feature, I use the full pressure from the start. I've tried different medications(prozac/lexapro/valdoxan/propralonol/xanax) but stopped because they either didn't work or had negative side effects. The only thing that worked was xanax but I stopped for fear of benzo addiction. I don't take alcohol and I don't drink.

Here are screenshots of my sleepyhead: fixed cpap setting: http://imgur.com/bf1xUIU

fixed bipap setting: http://imgur.com/a02bFPd

overview of all nights: http://imgur.com/LfRdFKs

I have about 5-6 weeks data on this thing but I won't share 35 screenshots...

[robysue]

y08hci0299,

I am sorry that you are having real problems making CPAP work for you.

I do have a question: Why are you posting here?

Do you want ideas on how to try to make this crazy therapy work better? Or do you want permission to just quit using your PAP? Or do you just want to grouse and maybe get a bit of moral support? Or are you convinced it's all a scam?

Because your purpose for posting is important for us to know. If you want help, we'll do what we can. If you just need to blow off some steam about how hard this all is, and then try, try, again, you'll get some support here too.

But if you are wanting someone to tell you that it's ok to just give up, throw the damn CPAP in the closet (or return it to the DME), and get on with your life as best you can, then you probably aren't going to get the kind of support you might be expecting here.

On the off chance that you are actually looking for help:

First let me tell you that you are not the only one who has had a really rough time adjusting to CPAP therapy. When I was 6 weeks in, I looked like death warmed over, had a massive uptick in my insomnia, was dealing with major aerophagia problems, and thought I'd never get something resembling a half-way decent night's sleep again in my life. But I wanted to make this crazy therapy work. And I did keep posting here and got lots of suggestions on things to try. Some worked, some didn't, and some were just wildly inappropriate. I also worked closely with a PA in my sleep doc's office, and she was critical in helping me get moved from CPAP to BiPAP Auto as well as in finding a way to bring the insomnia under control. It took me 5 months of therapy to start noticing some small positive changes in how I felt during the daytime. It took me me another 5-6 months of therapy to actually start sleeping well with the machine on most nights, where sleeping well means waking up feeling refreshed and rested and having enough energy to do what I want to do during the daytime.

You write:

I have been on cpap for 6 weeks(1.5 months now) and I still haven't gotten used to it. Trust me, I've tried many different setups, I have probably found the one that is the most comfortable for me personally,, so trying a new mask/new machine/new chinstrap or whatever won't work.

Without knowing exactly what you have tried to do in order to get used to the machine, we can't possibly help you. So I ask again: Are you posting because you want help getting this crazy therapy to work? Or are you posting to get someone to tell you that it's time to just give up and throw the damn machine in the closet?

Trust me: If you've been tried many different things in just 6 weeks, you may be "trying" too hard. Sometimes you need to try something for a week or more before you can clearly say, "This is not working."

So what have you tried? Give us some details so we don't suggest things that you've already tried ...

It's not so much the sensation or this particular mask that's bothering me(I use an airfit p10 the least bothersome mask of all) it's moreso the entire experience of cpap that's just been a complete chore.

Unless we have an idea of what's bothering you, we can't help you. And describing the "entire experience" as a "complete chore" gives us NOTHING to go on.

Are you physically uncomfortable when you put the mask on your nose and turn the machine on? If so, if the problem coming from the mask? Or is it the pressure? Or both?

If the straps, headgear, and mask make it difficult to get into a comfortable sleeping position, then changing masks can help.

If the problem is you don't like the way the air blowing down your throat feels, that's a different thing altogether. Sometimes adjusting the humidity and/or temperature helps. (Sometimes it doesn't.) If the problem is air getting into your stomach and causing it to hurt, then you have aerophagia (a very common problem). Sometimes changing the exhalation settings can help. Sometimes using a whole bunch of GERD-self help measures is enough to take the edge off the problem. Sometimes a minor pressure adjustment can help. Sometimes aerophagia is a serious enough problem that working with the doctor to get a BiPAP may be needed.

If the problem is that you find the exhaust vents always seem to blow air in your eyes, you may need to try a eye mask. Or rearrange the covers.

If the problem is you get tangled in the hose, you may need to try a hose management system.

If the problem is what I refer to as "sensory overload" (a combination of all these and more), sometimes the problem is to tackle one or two issues at a time rather than try to fix everything at once.

If the problem is that you just can't seem to get to sleep or stay asleep, then you may want to talk to the sleep doctor about whether short term use of a sleeping pill might get you over the hump .... Or you may want to pay a lot more attention to your sleep hygiene. (Self-help suggestions for insomnia is a starting place.)

The longest I've slept with it on is 4 hrs, followed by 2 hrs 45 min, other than that everry single night has been 30min, 1hr, 1.5 hrs, 2hrs, some nights I can't even stand it on my face. Most nights it's less than 2 hrs before I wake up.

How long does it take you to fall asleep with the mask on?

When you "can't even stand it on your face", how soon do you yank the thing off and just go sleep without it on?

How many nights have you just gone to sleep without using your machine?

And when you wake up, why do you take the mask off? Here's the thing: It's not uncommon for people (even people with NORMAL sleep) to wake up every couple of hours---these are usually normal post-REM wakes and usually a person wakes up just enough to establish that there's nothing "wrong" and then they go right back to sleep. And hen a wake lasts less than 5 minutes, a person doesn't even remember it the next morning. What's likely happening right now is that you wake up after 2 hours and because you notice the mask, you don't go right back to sleep. Rather you start fixating on just how uncomfortable everything is. Which prolongs the wake. And you likely are angry at the whole CPAP setup. (Lord knows I was angry every time I woke up during the first 6 months I was using a PAP machine.)

I'm cranky as all hell, depressed and suicidal, and it's not just using cpap that's the challenge at this point, it's just functioning, getting through the day, and having the will to live. I fantasise about giving up and suicide constantly. I see a psychiatrist and psychotherapist regularly, have been in therapy for years, have tried different psychiatric drugs(antidepressants/antianxiety meds) nothing is working.

If you are genuinely fantasizing about suicide, you need immediate help. Seriously. Call a suicide hotline. Call your psychiatrist. Call your psychotherapist. Suicidal thoughts are not something you can just ignore. Get the help you need to get this under control.

Next: Have you had an appointment with your psychiatrist and psychotherapist to let them know how things have deteriorated since you started CPAP? And how bad was the depression before you started CPAP? Were you having suicidal thoughts before you started CPAP?

Everything boils down to the quality of my sleep and nothing is working. My body just refuses to cooperate with cpap.

You say that everything boils down to the quality of your sleep. But what was the REAL quality of your sleep before you started CPAP? How bad is your untreated apnea? What were the specific symptoms that lead to you getting a sleep test in the first place? Were you surprised or shocked at being diagnosed with OSA?

I bring this up because my guess is that the real quality of your sleep pre-CPAP was that it was not that great. Yeah, you may have been in bed for 8 hours every night, but my guess is that you woke up feeling pretty lousy every morning and wondering why you didn't feel more rested.

Have you talked (really TALKED) with your psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and your sleep doctor about the subjective quality of your sleep these days? Have you followed the advice they have given you about working towards a solution?

I also wonder what your expectations for CPAP were: Did someone leave you with the impression that after a few weeks of CPAP that you would magically be waking up feeling refreshed and wonderful every morning and that your depression (and other mental health issues) would start to resolved, even though they've not really gotten any better with years of therapy?

I read stories of people who take 6 months/7 months/a year or multiple years to literally get a full nights sleep on it. There was even one user who posted in 2005 that he tried everything and was finally giving up, and in 2015 he posted again saying that he was trying and still getting used to it. 10 years.....

Most people adjust to PAP within about 2 or 3 months. Most people start feeling better after a few months. But, alas, you are not "most people"---you are you.

It is actually very rare for a person to actually stick with CPAP for a year or more and not adjust to CPAP therapy: Approximately 50% of people who start CPAP therapy discontinue it within one year, and the people who adjust and see benefit are NOT the ones who are likely to just quit PAPing. Rather the people who quit are typically the people who have some (often minor) difficulties, but who don't get the help they need (from their docs, their DMEs, their family, their friends, and forums like this) to figure out how to make this crazy therapy work. I was an outlier with my very difficult 10 month adjustment period. But I also have a stubborn streak in me and I was determined to not be defeated. I was also worried about what the long term damage of untreated OSA would be since both strokes and heart disease run in my family.

But as an outlier myself, I do want to be clear: Adjusting to CPAP therapy is not easy for a lot of people, and it can take 6-12 months before you start to notice any real improvement in how you are feeling. One thing I have noticed in my years here at cpaptalk (as well as on other forums) is this: There are several (overlapping) broad categories of people who have difficult adjustments. One category is people who have sleep problems in addition to OSA: CPAP doesn't fix other sleep problems and so when OSA is combined with other sleep problems, you don't tend to feel better until all the things that affect sleep are addressed. Another broad category are people who think they are "trying" to use CPAP, but who are undermining their own efforts to adjust to CPAP. One example of what I mean is a behavior you've hinted at in your own adjustment---falling asleep with the mask on, but taking it off after you wake up in two hours. Then returning to sleep the rest of the night without the mask. When you wake up feeling lousy, you blame the CPAP, but in reality it may be the 6 additional hours of apnea-filled sleep that you got without the CPAP.

I don't want to sound like a spoiled whiny child, that refuses to keep trying or refuses to be patient, I'm just afraid that I won't be alive in 3 months or 6 months because I might be tempted to end it. The fatigue and accompanying deepression has left me disabled, I live at home, I don't work, thank goodness I come from a good family who can afford to take care of me in this time. My sister even told me that she has been going through therapy to prepare brace herself mentally just in case she has to deal with me killing myself; this ordeal has taken a huge toll on myself and my family. I don't even know if this is a cry for help or just ranting.

Again: If you are genuinely suicidal, then you need to call a suicide hotline. You need to contact your psychiatrist and psychotherapist and see them right away. There is MORE going on here than just CPAP therapy. My guess is that the CPAP has added to a bad situation, but we here at cpaptalk.com do NOT have enough of your story to help you get over the hump in making CPAP therapy work for you in the sense of allowing you to sleep all night, with a few short wakes, and wake up feeling more rested than when you went to bed.

[herefishy]

We are very fortunate to have people like Robysue who are knowledgable and have had the problems that she has to draw support from. Pay close attention to her every word and take it to heart. She absolutely knows what she is talking about.

[ajack]

You can't get use to it if you don't use it. My first rule was always have the mask on when in bed, no excuses. I sat up if I needed to take if off, so I couldn't fall back to sleep without it. I also used it while watching TV on the lounge, a much more relaxed way of just getting use to the cpap world.

[robysue]

In response to a question from TASmart, you wrote:

I do use sleepyhead and monitor my numbers every night. The good news is that it does reduce my numbers significantly, I found a pressure when I can get 0 to about 2.5 RDI. The problem is compliance.

What pressure setting allows you to get your AHI to near 0 with an RDI of 2.5?

In response to Julie, you write:

I use the Dreamstation Bipap auto but I am currently experimenting with using either the cpap or fixed bipap setting because the auto adjusting pressure actually disturbs my sleep and gives me more events. I usually use pressure of about 10-11.

What is the LONGEST number of days you have used ONE set of therapeutic settings? Have you used ANY setting for more than 3 or 4 days before changing them? It takes the body time to adjust to sleeping with positive air pressure, and the more frequent you make pressure changes, the harder it can be for your body to adjust to them---particularly if your body doesn't like auto adjusting pressure modes.

the bipap takes a bit of getting used to as well because the thing about this machine is that the transition between pressures is not smooth, when I exhale it takes a split second for the pressure to go down, so it feels like my mask is 'inflating' and blowing up against my nose if that makes sense, I have tried all the biflex/EPR/rise time settings and none seem to improve the responsiveness of the machine.

The DreamStation does not have an EPR setting. Only Resmed machines have that.

In straight CPAP mode, you have a choice of turning C-Flex ON (settings 1, 2, or 3) or OFF. If you use CPAP mode with CFlex turned OFF, there is NO pressure change at all throughout the breath cycle. Have you tried that yet?

In BiPAP and BiPAP Auto mode, you have a choice of BiFlex (settings 1, 2, or 3) OR RiseTime (settings 1, 2, or 3). The BiFlex/RiseTime setting controls how the pressure transitions from EPAP to IPAP and from IPAP to EPAP.

In general: With RiseTime, the pressure drops suddenly from IPAP to EPAP as soon as the machine detects the beginning of the exhalation. The pressure stays at the EPAP pressure until the machine detects the (very subtle) beginning of the next inhalation, and the machine rapidly increases pressure (in a linear fashion) from EPAP to IPAP. With RiseTime=3, the full IPAP pressure is reached in 400 msec = 0.4 seconds. With RiseTime=1, the full IPAP is reached in 200 msec = 0.2 seconds.

BiFlex "rounds" the transitions as well as provides some additional pressure relief in addition to that caused by dropping the IPAP to EPAP. In general, BiFlex drops the pressure fastest when the exhale is most rapid, increases the pressure partway back up to the EPAP setting as the exhalation is tapering off, and finishes increasing the pressure all the way to IPAP after the inhalation starts. While the increase to IPAP is not linear, it still has a big jump near the beginning of the inhalation, but as the pressure gets closer to IPAP, the rate of increase is decreased somewhat. So BiFlex is supposed to feel smoother than RiseTime.

Not sure if it's just the algorithm or if all machines are like that, used a resmed airsense 10 before and I didn't seem to have this problem.

The Resmed AirSense EPR system does NOT feel like the PR machines at all. With EPR, the pressure is constantly changing throughout the breath cycle, and while there are times when the pressure is increasing (or decreasing) rather rapidly, EPR does not have the "jumps" in pressure that the PR RiseTime/BiFlex/Flex systems do.

If the AirSense 10 is more comfortable because there are no bothersome pressure jumps, then why not use it? Or did you get the PR DreamStation because the AirSense 10 is not an Elite or AutoSet? In other words, is your AirSense 10 a brick?

I use the airfit p10 along with a chin strap to keep my mouth closed.

Does the chinstrap significantly increase your discomfort? Have you considered using the airfit p10 without a chin strap just to see how bad the leaks look? Not everybody who thinks they mouth breath does so.

Not using the ramp feature, I use the full pressure from the start.

Were you more or less comfortable when you used the ramp?

I've tried different medications(prozac/lexapro/valdoxan/propralonol/xanax) but stopped because they either didn't work or had negative side effects. The only thing that worked was xanax but I stopped for fear of benzo addiction. I don't take alcohol and I don't drink.

All the meds (except for propralonol) you've listed are anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medications. Propralonol is commonly prescribed off label as an anti-anxiety med.

Were these prescribed by the psychiatrist? Or the sleep doc?

Are you on any medication for the depression? How is the psychiatrist treating your depression and/or anxiety?

You might want to talk to the sleep doc and the psychiatrist about whether a short-term script for Ambien, Sonata, or Belsomra might help get you over the hump on learning to get to sleep with the CPAP. But note: No sleeping pill is very effective at keeping you asleep all night long, in spite of the advertising hype. They're designed to help you get to sleep faster at the beginning of the night and they can help you get back to sleep a bit faster when you wake up. But they are not particularly effective at preventing middle of the night wakes.

Here are screenshots of my sleepyhead: fixed cpap setting: http://imgur.com/bf1xUIU

fixed bipap setting: http://imgur.com/a02bFPd

overview of all nights: http://imgur.com/LfRdFKs

I have about 5-6 weeks data on this thing but I won't share 35 screenshots...

[/quote]
My impressions of your data:

1) You show an overview of the data between March 2 and June 24. It looks like this:

Notably you have used the machine on only 35 of the 115 days of the data range posted. On the days you actually tried to use the machine, your usage times range from 10 minutes to not quite 4 hours. You've never used the machine more than 3 days in a row, and you've only got usage 3 days in a row twice. Most of the time, you have a pattern of using the machine for an hour or two one night, and then skipping the next night. There are two two-week long gaps with NO usage at all.

All this begs the question: Is the fact that you are feeling lousy right now a CPAP-adjustment problem? Or is it caused by the fact that most of the time you are sleeping without the mask? In other words, with this kind of usage, there's the real possibility that your current daytime functioning problems and your depression/anxiety/suicidal thoughts are not at all related to trying to use your CPAP, but rather may be related to the untreated OSA

And it also begs the question: Why do you think you've "done everything" to try to adjust to CPAP? You haven't tried the most important adjustment technique of all: USE THE MACHINE EVERY NIGHT. As in TRY every single night to go to sleep with the machine on your nose.

You are undermining your adjustment by taking the machine off as soon as you are uncomfortable AND then not even trying to use the machine the next day.

It could be that you need to practice using the machine in the daytime: Watch tv with the machine on during the evening. See if you can tolerate it for 30-60 minutes while you are distracting your mind with something else. And you need to focus on forcing yourself to TRY to use the machine EVERY NIGHT at the beginning of the night. NO EXCEPTIONS.

[Oltremare]

Robisue is right.
You've been using cpap for a few hours, it's too small to get used to the cpap.
I recommend you to start off again!
Try to use the cpap all nights and at least for 5 or 6 hours if possible. You said you did not work so the next morning you have time to rest if you're too tired.
Start from your first OSAS diagnosis and ask for help here in the forum day after day.
Who has prescribed the cpap?
Did you have a sleep study? What data have emerged? AHI?
Do not change too many things, just small corrections, one at a time, with so much patience and above all, think of the cpap as a precious friend, not like an enemy!

Courage

Oltremare

[y08hci0299]

Hi Robysue, let's just put it this way, it's hard to put on the mask and use the machine every night when you're severely depressed. I even find it difficult to shower or to brush my teeth, it takes a lot out of me to muster up the energy to 'prepare' a night on cpap. especially when every attempt has been met with failure. And to answer your question, when I used the resmed airsense 10 auto, it was a 1 month trial from a local shop, I had to return it eventually, I did not realise that there would be such big differences between the machines, and the dreamstation bipap auto is actually a lot cheaper than resmed machines where I am from, so I conveniently thought, hey it's cheaper, philips is a good brand, lots of people use the machine, why not. It's only after months of tinkering that I realised that the differences were so stark, and that the little things actually made a big difference. I'm really grateful for all your suggestions and your questions and I am pouring over them and I'll answer them one by one. My sleep doctors(yes plural) have been pretty useless, most of them have no idea how to operate a cpap, and I'm not going to pay $100 consultation to have them tell me to be patient with cpap and to just keep going. I have worked with sleep techs, the ones I've worked with so far have been woefully incompetent, they don't even know what sleepyhead is, they don't even know what UARS is, and they just give simplistic advice like mask not working out? Try a new mask. Pressure not comfortable? Try a new pressure. There have been times where they barely even knew how to operate the machines they were selling. My psychiatrist basically just wants to keep throwing different pills at the problem, sort of like throw shit at the wall and hope something sticks. My psychologist is the only one who has been really helping put through this process, but she's a psychologist, not a sleep specialist, she provides a listening ear, but she can;t exactly help me along because she knows nothing about sleep medicine/cpap usage etc. so i really the support i'm getting on these forums is the only support that I'm getting. Not that I haven't tried reaching out, just that the asisstance I have received from these professionals is inadequate. I mean you gave me more information and insight into cpap usage in your 2 replies to me on this forum compared to all the sleep techs and sleep doctors I have seen in the last year combined. I'm feeling physically lousy because of my poor sleep, but i think the mental/emotional aspect of feeling lousy really comes the frustration not being able to get used to cpap.

I have had a few sources of discomfort so far
1)The feeling of the chinstrap against my face, I've woken up once because the chin strap was too tight and it caused me pain, sometimes it's just the feeling of fabric against my skin.
2)The feeling of the mask, the pillows on the inside of the nose which sometimes causes irritation, the feeling of mask resting against the top of my lip which causes heat and moisture buildup,
3)The pressure. The bipap is uncomfortable for me, but if I use the cpap function, too high a pressure eliminates my events, but causes me anxiety and requires more effort, lower pressures are a lot more confortable but I end up having more vents.

It's really hit or miss, the sensations are the same every night, but some nights I'm ok with it, some nights I just get so agitated I pull everything off. Yes, and I have tried using it while awake, the discomfort becomes too much to bear after awhile. I've also tried sleeping pills, all they did was make me sleepier, but they did nothing to actually help me sleep, and I would wake up even more tired in the morning.

[Julie]

One thing that could help as it has others would be a soft cervical collar that helps keep your head off your chest (if it's an issue), your airway more open and your jaws, if not lips, closed. Something to think about if you hate chinstraps, that are not always very effective anyhow.

[kteague]

I get it. I remember the utter discouragement, feeling bankrupt of energy, and the inability to muster motivation for even basic hygiene. As embarrassing as it feels, I admit I remember realizing one time that it had been at least 5 days since I'd brushed my teeth. While my causes were different from you (also have RLS and Periodic Limb Movement Disorder), the sleep deprivation and inability to get sustained sleep felt similar to how you describe. My commitment to using my lasts shreds of resolve was a desperation move - I felt I would surely die if something didn't change. I committed to putting on my mask every night no matter what. Every night I told myself that maybe this would be the night that I would sleep. Over and over it wasn't the night - until it was. I encourage you to utilize some of your support network and ask them to help you with putting on the mask every night. If you are not in the same house, maybe they could facetime you at bedtime and ask to see you with your mask on. An accountability partner of sorts. Please know that the very thing you resist is likely your salvation. Follow advice here to optimize your treatment experience, then do whatever it takes to make yourself do what you need to do. Maybe that will mean you get 5 annoying calls every night and you'll put that daggone mask on just to get the people off your case. And please do talk with a professional. I have a feeling your depression will improve with proper sleep, but until then it appears to be a bit much to handle on your own. Best wishes in making a rally and finding just enough energy to give this a fair chance at helping you.