Old snoring apneic, new to APAP and not loving it
Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2017 12:27 pm
I am new to the forum and haven't really introduced myself yet.
All my life I have had trouble sleeping, never able to fall or stay asleep, except through sheer exhaustion after days of limited night-napping (what I call my miserable attempts to sleep at night). I perfected my intense snoring habit over recent years, developed a bit of extra weight and after many attempts to lose weight, being labeled pre-diabetic and after failure of anti-snoring devices up to and including the dental-fitted TAP3, I gave in and asked for a sleep study. Husband stated I don't breathe at times during sleep and that got me an in-house study, during which I slept a whopping 2 1/2 hours. Apparently, the data they gathered was enough.
Our family, in general, are very talented snorers. Brother wears CPAP. Everyone in my immediate family suffered from obesity, except for one sister.
I am using nasal pillows to keep as much off of my face as possible, but find that I just can't get my breathing to relax and find myself holding off inhaling through my nose at times so that I can momentarily catch my breath through my mouth. I think anxiety is my enemy here. I contemplated use of a mask, but not sure that's the right approach because I think if I can control my anxiety with the nasal pillows all will work out.
I have tried visualization, focusing on slowing my breathing and telling myself how easy the breath feels (doesn't work!), don't use the computer before bed and I use a foam neck pillow (Dr something-or-another brand) and it works great to keep my mouth closed and keep neck from drooping and closing airway..actually sort of comfy. Husband states I never was a mouth-breather, but I feel better with it.
I finally relented, after trying Unisom (doxylamine type), Benadryl, and melatonin to try to get me off to sleep after several nights of listening to my super-loud breathing in my ears so I could learn to tolerate the pressures and the windstorm in my ears, and contacted my sleep specialist who begrudgingly ordered Ambien 5 mg. I have taken it for two nights. First night...disaster...must have been breathing through my mouth and awoke several times to the Sahara desert. Last night...only a couple hours of sleep mixed with laying in bed with the mask on and begging the sleep gods for relief. I finally just got out of bed and sat up the rest of the night. This is my cyle...rinse and repeat.
From the sleep study, I was labeled as mild to moderate sleep apnea with mixed central and obstructive.
I downloaded SleepyHead and stored some info on an SD card.
I have the screen shots and can share that data, but have a couple of questions before I do so (because I didn't stumble on the concise answer through the search function):
1. Is it sufficient to post the Imgur link to the screenshot instead of posting a picture?
2. I use a Mac and cannot for the life of me figure out how to turn off the calendar feature in SleepyHead. Any ideas?
Glad to have this venue. I want to become compliant (hate that term!) and understand what my body is doing during sleep.
*I added my device info, but in case it doesn't show: I have a ResMed Airsense 10 for Her, ResMed nasal pillows, heated humidifier, pressure settings 5-15. I have been using the auto ramp feature because without it, I always felt like I couldn't exhale. With Autoramp, I don't have that suffocating feeling. My hope is to turn the ramp off as I get more used to this device.
Jen
All my life I have had trouble sleeping, never able to fall or stay asleep, except through sheer exhaustion after days of limited night-napping (what I call my miserable attempts to sleep at night). I perfected my intense snoring habit over recent years, developed a bit of extra weight and after many attempts to lose weight, being labeled pre-diabetic and after failure of anti-snoring devices up to and including the dental-fitted TAP3, I gave in and asked for a sleep study. Husband stated I don't breathe at times during sleep and that got me an in-house study, during which I slept a whopping 2 1/2 hours. Apparently, the data they gathered was enough.
Our family, in general, are very talented snorers. Brother wears CPAP. Everyone in my immediate family suffered from obesity, except for one sister.
I am using nasal pillows to keep as much off of my face as possible, but find that I just can't get my breathing to relax and find myself holding off inhaling through my nose at times so that I can momentarily catch my breath through my mouth. I think anxiety is my enemy here. I contemplated use of a mask, but not sure that's the right approach because I think if I can control my anxiety with the nasal pillows all will work out.
I have tried visualization, focusing on slowing my breathing and telling myself how easy the breath feels (doesn't work!), don't use the computer before bed and I use a foam neck pillow (Dr something-or-another brand) and it works great to keep my mouth closed and keep neck from drooping and closing airway..actually sort of comfy. Husband states I never was a mouth-breather, but I feel better with it.
I finally relented, after trying Unisom (doxylamine type), Benadryl, and melatonin to try to get me off to sleep after several nights of listening to my super-loud breathing in my ears so I could learn to tolerate the pressures and the windstorm in my ears, and contacted my sleep specialist who begrudgingly ordered Ambien 5 mg. I have taken it for two nights. First night...disaster...must have been breathing through my mouth and awoke several times to the Sahara desert. Last night...only a couple hours of sleep mixed with laying in bed with the mask on and begging the sleep gods for relief. I finally just got out of bed and sat up the rest of the night. This is my cyle...rinse and repeat.
From the sleep study, I was labeled as mild to moderate sleep apnea with mixed central and obstructive.
I downloaded SleepyHead and stored some info on an SD card.
I have the screen shots and can share that data, but have a couple of questions before I do so (because I didn't stumble on the concise answer through the search function):
1. Is it sufficient to post the Imgur link to the screenshot instead of posting a picture?
2. I use a Mac and cannot for the life of me figure out how to turn off the calendar feature in SleepyHead. Any ideas?
Glad to have this venue. I want to become compliant (hate that term!) and understand what my body is doing during sleep.
*I added my device info, but in case it doesn't show: I have a ResMed Airsense 10 for Her, ResMed nasal pillows, heated humidifier, pressure settings 5-15. I have been using the auto ramp feature because without it, I always felt like I couldn't exhale. With Autoramp, I don't have that suffocating feeling. My hope is to turn the ramp off as I get more used to this device.
Jen