Newbie would like to hear success stories, please.

[uars_advice]

Copying a pasting from my thread about my situation here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=186082&p=1443982#p1443982

Wanted to post an update of my situation, since seeing a ton of UARS help posts with no resolutions listed was a little nerve-wracking.

I am 5 months into PAP therapy and it is awesome!! Absolutely night and day. I saw Dr. Gold on Long Island who I love. He prescribed me a resmed airsense 11, pressure 4-8. I have EPR set to 3 which helped me get used to it. I use an n20i mask which has been great as a side sleeper. Took me two masks to find one that I liked. I have been thinking about maybe trying nasal pillows. Dr. Gold was adamantly anti full face mask. It took maybe a week or 2 to get comfortable with PAP therapy, and I think a big part of that was my mask. The first mask I used was an n30i - as a side sleeper, I was basically crushing the tube that runs down the side on the side I sleep on, which limited airflow and made me feel like I wasn't getting enough air.

I started to feel a difference a few weeks - a month in. As an auxiliary benefit, my ADHD and anxiety are gone (I am off SSRIs now - Dr. Gold and others believe that sleep disordered breathing can create anxiety/depression/executive functioning issues with the brain, and the more I read into it the more I agree with him and his peers who share that opinion). My testosterone levels are back to normal - they were incredibly low, especially given the fact that I'm a 24 y/o male, and my heart rate has gone down. No more random feelings of a super fast heart rate.

I am considering getting MMA surgery (many of Dr. Gold's patients do as a permanent fix) so I won't ever need to use PAP therapy again, but I don't really have an issue with my CPAP and don't really want to deal with a surgery like that if I don't have to. Maybe that will change after I spend more time with my CPAP.

If you have UARS or are in a similar situation, feel free to reach out for advice etc!

[tlohse]

Hello I am success story . I’ve been using cpap since June 2013. I just had an appointment with my sleep doctor today and according to my printout my results have been really good. I am currently 45 years old soon to be 46. My advice for everyone is to keep using it and it will work.

[GolfGardener]

Now that I've come across this thread, I'm posting my story here in the hope that it helps somebody else:

viewtopic/t188275/CPAP-journey--18-months-in.html

[Mishepishu]

Friends, thanks for all your posts. I’ve only used my ResMed snorkel machine for seven days. Each night I encountered a uniques problem and the following day, solved the problem. However day 6 and 7 have presented a new and very strange problem. The airflow and “event” data is much improved, but my emotions are very fragile and I can’t think-! Like, I’m walking around with an object in my hand and I don’t know what to do with it. I’ve experienced diminished mental capacity from sleep deprivation before, but what’s even stranger is that my creative capacity has also dropped to near zero. I do creative work every day in a hobby capacity and I have a technical job that can be demanding at times, so my function at each is a good measure of rest. Typically when my analytical ability is diminished I still have very good creative capacity. After the last two nights it has vanished. It’s very strange! The CPAP is improving airflow but my sleep is still very messed up. My eyes feel like raisins and I think I’m going to cry. Maybe it’s time for a no kidding sleep specialist because there’s more going on than airflow, right? [cross eyed goofy face here] Thanks everyone! Thanks for reading and the hospitality! I’ll get the CPAP info asap