About 3 months in........

Tatooed Lady wrote:Careful...I might just start feeling brilliant here, if people start agreeing with me.

So...maybe it's not a BAD thing that you're breathing deeper now. It feels "wrong" because you aren't used to it, but getting enough air to let your body relax as you sleep can't be a BAD thing. I had many aches and pains in my back, shoulders and neck pre-therapy...don't get me wrong, I'm NOT ache free now, but since dinking around with being able to breathe and not keep waking during the night, my body can finally relax. It takes time. It takes patience. I agree that you might just need to distract your brain from overthinking how deeply you breathe during the day. Music, meditation, wild naked dancing on tables while singing show tunes at the top of your lungs...whatever it takes.

Well, the secondary issue is that I get no benefit other than an improved AHI. I wake up far too often. If this was improving my sleep, I'd feel better about it, but I actually sleep much worse now.

Did your oxygen levels drop pre cpap therapy when you were untreated?
If they did and with a lower AHI now...the prevention of oxygen starvation to your vital organs is a benefit even if you don't perceive feeling better and are actually sleeping worse.

I do understand what you are saying and feeling but there are hidden dangers and health consequences when sleep apnea is left untreated because someone thinks that sleep apnea doesn't do anything but mess with our sleep.
My oxygen levels dropped to 73% with my apneas...and it wasn't a brief drop..it was down there for a long time.
Now if your oxygen levels never dropped much then maybe giving up wouldn't kill your vital organs slowly from oxygen starvation but I would want to make sure I understood all the risks first and that includes all the information from your sleep studies and a thorough discussion with your doctor about that data so you understand totally what is going on.

I know it's tough when we are promised that cpap therapy will fix our sleep issues and someone draws the short straw and cpap therapy fixes sleep apnea but makes sleep quality worse.

Pugsy wrote:Did your oxygen levels drop pre cpap therapy when you were untreated?
If they did and with a lower AHI now...the prevention of oxygen starvation to your vital organs is a benefit even if you don't perceive feeling better and are actually sleeping worse.

I do understand what you are saying and feeling but there are hidden dangers and health consequences when sleep apnea is left untreated because someone thinks that sleep apnea doesn't do anything but mess with our sleep.
My oxygen levels dropped to 73% with my apneas...and it wasn't a brief drop..it was down there for a long time.
Now if your oxygen levels never dropped much then maybe giving up wouldn't kill your vital organs slowly from oxygen starvation but I would want to make sure I understood all the risks first and that includes all the information from your sleep studies and a thorough discussion with your doctor about that data so you understand totally what is going on.

I know it's tough when we are promised that cpap therapy will fix our sleep issues and someone draws the short straw and cpap therapy fixes sleep apnea but makes sleep quality worse.

Yes, my O2 levels apparently dropped into the 70's. I understand the dangers of discontinuing CPAP. Not seeing improvements in my sleep aside, it's not sustainable to continue to feel as if I can't breathe during the day (not to mention the increase in the neck pain that was improving before I started).