how long does it take for symptoms to go away with cpap

[cuteangel]

i don't have the machine yet. just had the sleep study on Friday night. i had one prior to that which they said i had mild sleep apnea. Friday night was with a mask on. i don't no what AHI means? i was just getting frustrated with how tired i feel, i feel like i cant function and i was hoping when i get the machine that i would start to feel better.

[BlackSpinner]

i don't have the machine yet. just had the sleep study on Friday night. i had one prior to that which they said i had mild sleep apnea. Friday night was with a mask on. i don't no what AHI means? i was just getting frustrated with how tired i feel, i feel like i cant function and i was hoping when i get the machine that i would start to feel better.

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[Guest]

I really do mean less grumpiness.
Before cpap, I could have impersonated Margaret Hamilton in her role opposite sweet Dorothy.
@guest, I "get" that you don't like me, but to do so anonymously is cowardly.
Share your story, so others can help. Bless you, in all your pain.

its not you
it is your (and others) cowardly comments

Since it seems your therapy isn't working well, shown by the amount of bitchiness you are displaying without any wittiness, perhaps you should log in and ask for help.

zactly what i am talkin about

perhaps you should follow your own advice

[Tatooed Lady]

I really do mean less grumpiness.
Before cpap, I could have impersonated Margaret Hamilton in her role opposite sweet Dorothy.

Me, I'd be the one screaming, "NO MORE WIRE HANGARS!!!"

[BlackSpinner]

I really do mean less grumpiness.
Before cpap, I could have impersonated Margaret Hamilton in her role opposite sweet Dorothy.
@guest, I "get" that you don't like me, but to do so anonymously is cowardly.
Share your story, so others can help. Bless you, in all your pain.

its not you
it is your (and others) cowardly comments

Since it seems your therapy isn't working well, shown by the amount of bitchiness you are displaying without any wittiness, perhaps you should log in and ask for help.

zactly what i am talkin about

perhaps you should follow your own advice

Tweety Pie my therapy is well dialled in and has been for 5 years. But I don't suffer fools very well or whiny little twits. Never have and never will, so just stick it where the sun don't shine and let your betters handle this.

[Guest]

Tweety Pie my therapy is well dialled in and has been for 5 years. But I don't suffer fools very well or whiny little twits. Never have and never will, so just stick it where the sun don't shine and let your betters handle this.

and you wonder why you dont have a companion in your life?

a true lady on the internet one who will insult others to feel good about herself
talking with you is like tryin to tell a drunk he has had too much to drink
an impossible task

[BlackSpinner]

Tweety Pie my therapy is well dialled in and has been for 5 years. But I don't suffer fools very well or whiny little twits. Never have and never will, so just stick it where the sun don't shine and let your betters handle this.

and you wonder why you dont have a companion in your life?

a true lady on the internet one who will insult others to feel good about herself
talking with you is like tryin to tell a drunk he has had too much to drink
an impossible task

Ok you cowardly troll, hiding behind a guest login, I don't wonder why I don't have a companion for life. I had several and got rid of them and I don't need anyone else to complicate my life right now anyway. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? No, I am not targeting trolls, the scum of the earth, for my self esteem but to protect others. You are not necessary for my life or anyone elses life. Go suck worms, twit.

[Guest]

Tweety Pie my therapy is well dialled in and has been for 5 years. But I don't suffer fools very well or whiny little twits. Never have and never will, so just stick it where the sun don't shine and let your betters handle this.

and you wonder why you dont have a companion in your life?

a true lady on the internet one who will insult others to feel good about herself
talking with you is like tryin to tell a drunk he has had too much to drink
an impossible task

Ok you cowardly troll, hiding behind a guest login, I don't wonder why I don't have a companion for life. I had several and got rid of them and I don't need anyone else to complicate my life right now anyway. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? No, I am not targeting trolls, the scum of the earth, for my self esteem but to protect others. You are not necessary for my life or anyone elses life. Go suck worms, twit.

its got to do with your behavior the way you relate to others the way you involved yourself in something that had nothing to do with you so you feel it is your job to protect the world from the guest eh

it appears you are a very unhappy woman and there is nothing anyone here could do to make you happy
you have not accepted that you feel the need to insult others to make you feel better about being unhappy

this is the wrong forum for someone with those problems

btw i am no more anonymous than you are

[robysue]

To cuteangel:

How long it takes to start feeling noticeably better varies tremendously. For most new PAPers, it takes a few weeks to a couple of months to sort out how to sleep well with the hose and start feeling better. A few lucky people start feeling better immediately, but that really is the exception rather than the rule. Some people take longer--- as in they don't notice any improvement until they've been paping for several months, as in 4-6 months. A few unlucky people take even longer, as in a year or more.

Some of how long it takes to feel better depends on how bad you perceive your symptoms to be: Many folks with really severe problems with daytime sleepiness feel better within the first month. People who experience less or no daytime sleepiness with the untreated OSA tend to take longer to feel better.

And some of how long it takes to feel better depends on how quickly you learn to sleep well with the PAP equipment on your nose. Some folks (like my hubby) take to sleeping with the equipment like a duck to water and have no serious adjustment problems. Other folks (like me) face a really steep learning curve in just learning how to sleep with the mask. In my case, being excessively sensitive to all kinds of physical stimuli made learning how to sleep well with the mask---as opposed to just sleeping with the mask----took a very long time.

And for most of us, there's not a dramatic sudden improvement: Most of us don't just wake up one morning shortly after starting PAP raring to get out of bed because we're wide awake, alert, and full of energy that lasts the whole day. Rather, most of us see gradual improvement of our symptoms as our body starts to heal from the years of untreated OSA. And sometimes the first signs that PAPing is doing real good are subtle enough to miss unless you're looking for them and realize that the small, subtle improvement may be tied to getting in the OSA under control. For some people, the first improvement is simply fewer nighttime bathroom trips. For me, the first sign PAP was doing me good was when I began to notice (about 4-5 months after starting PAP) that I was waking up with significantly less pain in my hands and feet.

It's critically important to have reasonable expectations when you start out on PAP. And expecting to wake up feeling full of energy within a few days of starting PAP is NOT a reasonable expectation, although a lot of medical folks will make bald faced promises about how much better you will feel immediately after starting PAP therapy. Unreasonable expectations about PAP lead a lot of new PAPers to abandon therapy way too soon because they conclude (incorrectly) that PAP just isn't working for them.

It's also important to understand that PAP fixes OSA and nothing else. If the untreated OSA is the only cause of your current bad sleep, then you should start to feel better (in a few weeks to a month or so) after starting PAP. But if there are other causes of your bad sleep in addition to the OSA, you might not feel much better until those other causes are properly treated in addition to using the PAP as directed, which is every night, all night long.

[library lady]

Guest, This is a forum for people who want to make the most of their therapy and get answers; it is not a place for childish banter from a "guest" who can't be bothered to register here. If you don't have anything positive to contribute to a cpap forum, then go away instead of bashing people.

[Guest]

Guest, This is a forum for people who want to make the most of their therapy and get answers; it is not a place for childish banter from a "guest" who can't be bothered to register here. If you don't have anything positive to contribute to a cpap forum, then go away instead of bashing people.

if you read this thread you will see i was helping. trying to help until the irritable sleep deprived posters started making negative comments. read it for your self before you join the unhappy poster club

[JustTia]

*Stepping around the drama puddle*

I have had my cpap for about a month now. The 9 days were awful because of mask fit issues and unwieldy hose issues and this-thing-on-my-face-keeping-me-awake issues and, and, and... I felt like death warmed over and asked myself why I was doing this again almost every night/morning. I was forcing myself to wear the mask for at least 4 hours, per doc's orders, but holy cow was it ever miserable. It felt like I was awake and aware during the night MORE often after starting the cpap therapy than before. Definitely frustrating.

Then, I got a new mask. Once that didn't leak. And a chin strap a few days later, to hold my mouth shut. And I was finally able to almost forget that the mask was on. I started sleeping for 7-8 hours or more per night. I'm finally starting to find my groove now and get used to it. I still don't feel *fantastic*, like I was hoping for so desperately, but I have HOPE. Why? Because, in the last week and a half I have had doc appointments with both my primary and with my endocrinologist, and my blood pressure at these appointments was 108/60 and 125/58. Why is this significant? Because, for at least 2 years my blood pressure has been high. High enough that my doctor wanted to start me on medication for it, and when he found out that I snore he decided to try the sleep study as a last ditch effort at ruling stuff out before starting me on meds. My blood pressure was consistently 150-155/80-85. For YEARS. After only three weeks of papping, with only a few days of that really successful sleep before the first appointment, my blood pressure dropped so significantly that it's not only not high any more but is almost borderline LOW now!

So - while I don't *feel* that energetic or alert yet, I KNOW that it's working. That reassurance was all I needed to keep doing this until I get really comfortable with it. My body is showing me that the damage is being reversed, little by little. So, yeah - angels didn't sing or anything like that, but I'm very encouraged to keep at it.

[photonic]

RobySue and JustTia

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your last posts. I am starting out and my sleep with PAP is so much worse now than before. Your posts gave me perspective and hope. A great contribution. My goal is lowering blood glucose levels that are suspected by my doctors as being driven by OSA as well as daytime sleepiness. But since my pre PAP sleep was always uninterrupted and sound, the PAP Rx has been very rough on me. Thanks for your encouragement.

I am so glad you persisted in posting here despite the other non helpful posts in this thread.

[robysue]

Guest, This is a forum for people who want to make the most of their therapy and get answers; it is not a place for childish banter from a "guest" who can't be bothered to register here. If you don't have anything positive to contribute to a cpap forum, then go away instead of bashing people.

if you read this thread you will see i was helping. trying to help until the irritable sleep deprived posters started making negative comments. read it for your self before you join the unhappy poster club

I cannot let this statement of Guest's go unaddressed.

Guest, you claim all you are trying to do is help. Let's review your previous posts in this thread:

Post 1:

less grumpiness)

surely you jest
this forum is loaded with rude sarcastic comments which dont bear that out

to the op think back to figure out just how long this went undiagnosed.

This post starts with an attack on the forum as a whole. But I will admit that your second statement is an attempt to help the OP. However, telling the OP to "think back to figure out just how long this went undiagnosed" really does NOTHING to help the OP directly in figuring out why he/she is still feeling tired and grumpy and (more importantly) does nothing to answer the OP's question of How long does it take to start feeling better? In other words, there's no real help to the OP in this post.


Post 2:

I really do mean less grumpiness.
Before cpap, I could have impersonated Margaret Hamilton in her role opposite sweet Dorothy.
@guest, I "get" that you don't like me, but to do so anonymously is cowardly.
Share your story, so others can help. Bless you, in all your pain.

its not you
it is your (and others) cowardly comments

This is a bald-faced attack on chunkyfrog. And it provides NO HELP or insight whatsoever to the OP's question about went to expect to start feeling better and why the OP is still feeling cranky and tired.


Post 3:

I am wondering how long it takes for my fatigue and feeling cranky all the time to go away when treating with the cpap machine? if my symptoms are due to this.

In all honesty just wearing a cpap is not enuff. You need to have your mask leaks under control and your pressure right for you.

The best way to know how things are going is to have a data machine and then learn to read and understand your data. This is the best place to learn all that.

You DO say something useful and helpful here. It is good advice to tell a newbie that a full data machine may help.

It is odd that after bashing the forum in Post #1, you do go on to say, "This is the best place to learn all that." But I'll take the compliment anyway.


Post 4:

I really do mean less grumpiness.
Before cpap, I could have impersonated Margaret Hamilton in her role opposite sweet Dorothy.
@guest, I "get" that you don't like me, but to do so anonymously is cowardly.
Share your story, so others can help. Bless you, in all your pain.

its not you
it is your (and others) cowardly comments

Since it seems your therapy isn't working well, shown by the amount of bitchiness you are displaying without any wittiness, perhaps you should log in and ask for help.

zactly what i am talkin about

perhaps you should follow your own advice

More attacks, this time attacking BlackSpinner. And NO help at all to the OP and his/her problem.

Post 5:

Tweety Pie my therapy is well dialled in and has been for 5 years. But I don't suffer fools very well or whiny little twits. Never have and never will, so just stick it where the sun don't shine and let your betters handle this.

and you wonder why you dont have a companion in your life?

a true lady on the internet one who will insult others to feel good about herself
talking with you is like tryin to tell a drunk he has had too much to drink
an impossible task

Again nothing but an attack on BlackSpinner. And NO help at all to the OP and his/her problem.


Which brings us to Post 6, which I quoted at the beginning of this post:

Guest, This is a forum for people who want to make the most of their therapy and get answers; it is not a place for childish banter from a "guest" who can't be bothered to register here. If you don't have anything positive to contribute to a cpap forum, then go away instead of bashing people.

if you read this thread you will see i was helping. trying to help until the irritable sleep deprived posters started making negative comments. read it for your self before you join the unhappy poster club

Guest, you have posted 6 separate replies to this thread. And only ONE of the 6 has made a statement of any real use to to OP (Post 3) without attacking either the forum as a whole or individual members of the forum. One other post (Post 1) did contain a pretty meaningless statement that represents a real effort to help to OP, but it also starts with a open attack on the forum as a whole.

So you've made 6 posts. Two of them contain something that might conceivably be "useful" to the OP, but only one of the two is clearly useful. So the percentage of your posts that are "helpful" is between 16.7% (1/6) and 33.3% (2/6) posts. Five of the six posts contain specific attacks on either the forum or particular members of the forum. The "attack language" in these five posts is NOT ambiguous; they are clear attacks. Hence the percentage of your posts that include attacks is 83.3%.

Given that at most 33.3% of your posts have anything remotely of use to the OP and 83.3% of the posts include specific attacks, you just can't get away with saying that all you're trying to do is be helpful in this thread: You are spending most of your time attacking the forum and particular members of the forum.

Final note: Yes, I know that you're going to say that Posts 2, 4, 5, and 6 were all "defending" yourself from others attacking you. But your first post was the SEVENTH reply to the original poster. And the first SIX replies contain no language that can be perceived as an attack on the OP or other forum members. In other words, you are the one who made the first attack on this thread. And you made it in your FIRST response. It's not really that big of a surprise that when you post anonymously as an unregistered guest AND your first post is an attack, that people respond in kind by attacking you.

[JustTia]

RobySue and JustTia

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your last posts. I am starting out and my sleep with PAP is so much worse now than before. Your posts gave me perspective and hope. A great contribution. My goal is lowering blood glucose levels that are suspected by my doctors as being driven by OSA as well as daytime sleepiness. But since my pre PAP sleep was always uninterrupted and sound, the PAP Rx has been very rough on me. Thanks for your encouragement.

I am so glad you persisted in posting here despite the other non helpful posts in this thread.

I'm glad that you got a little encouragement. Hopefully we'll look back on these early days of papping at some point in the future, and realize just how far we've come. I also have insane insulin resistance that my doc feels will be helped by this treatment. I suspect, in the last few days, that my insulin resistance is starting to drop but it's a little early to say for sure yet. I sure hope so! And I hope that I can finally lose some weight and get healthier!