What to do during power outages

By now maybe your storm is over...but I will share an experience I had a year ago or so that readers can be reassured when this happens.

I was on a plane back to Minnesota, landed at MSP and took a shuttle 90 miles to my home. Carried the machine onto the shuttle, and when I got home I didn't have it. Then I realized that I'd forgotten to carry it off the shuttle where I had set it on the floor by my feet, but it was midnight and I knew the shuttle office was closed. So, I went to bed without it as there was no other choice but to stay up all night and maybe fall asleep anyway as I was dead tired from traveling. Amazingly, I slept quite well. In the morning I called the shuttle office and the driver had found it and brought it inside. I picked it up that day, and I haven't forgotten it since because I now put my leg through the strap if I want to put it on the floor of the van, which is more comfortable than keeping on my lap for an hour and a half.

library lady wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 04, 2018 8:27 pm

I haven't forgotten it since because I now put my leg through the strap if I want to put it on the floor of the van

CPAPer's version of tying a string around a finger.

Then goes in a shop to get coffee, waitress asks her why she is wearing her leash so low... Jim

Hope everyone did well with the storm... We lost power for about 8 hours but it was back on in time for me to go to bed.

Not to muddy the waters any but there a few things I'd be thinking of before considering going to sleep with out my XPAP.

There is an idea that I've heard mentioned here multiple times by different people. That before when your apnea wasn't treated your brain was used to the events and you wouldn't sleep as deeply or would be better equipped to deal with them or at least the acute events. But, after treating the Apnea for a significant time your brain gets used to sleeping normally and deeply as you should and so having apnea occur again with out your XPAP could be more dangerous then before when it hadn't been treated for a long time. {The whole idea may be utter nonsense but it makes sense to me.}

Before I would consider sleeping with out my machine I'd have to think about how bad my Apnea was before treatment. Did your apnea present with significant desats? Those factors would weight in on my choice to sleep or not sleep with out my machine. In my case my desats were very significant and so I'd worry that one bad night with out my machine could be very dangerous. That's why I won't sleep with out it no mater what.

If I have to go more then one night with out sleep I have a good friend who lives 30 min away with a house generator and we have an arrangement were I'll come to his house for emergencies. Power has been very stable or quickly repaired were I live so in the 15 years or so I've been on CPAP I've only had 1 occurrence were I had to go more then 1 night with out sleep before power was restored. For those who live somewhere were it can take a week or more to fix your power. You should be looking at a battery backup system or a generator. There lots of resources on this forum for building your own backup system with different kinds of batteries. I would look into it if you think you'll need it. At the very least have a recliner ready to try sleeping in as that may help but isn't perfect.

If you know you have power issues and you can't be sure you'll have reliable power you need a backup plan. That can be something you make or somewhere you can go but always have a plan. It makes things a lot less stressful when bad weather is on it's way.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Gryphon