Logies101 wrote:First i want to say that I am not someone who wants to stop CPAP. I know how I felt before I started three months ago and how I felt after using it. The difference was like night and day. I wasn't waking up with headaches anymore, I could go through the day without taking naps, I wasn't miserable anymore. Then I got stick. I started coughing, a dry cough then a cough with mucus and shortness of breath. The coughing and mucus won't stop, neither will the shortness of breath. Dr says it's bronchitis and to stop the CPAP to see if it goes away.
This is my third night without using it. I'm not only concerned that medicare will take the machine away because I'm not using it but I'm afraid that i'm not going to wake up in the morning. I sleep sitting up, with my oral device, a breathe rite strip and a neck collar. I'm not getting much sleep and I'm starting to get depressed. The bronchitis isn't getting any better and I have no idea how long it's going to take. They have me on my second round of antibiotics, nebulizer with albuterol, prednisone. I'm using methol cough drops like crazy. I've never had any thing like this before and I'm not even sure it's what they say it is, sigh
I need your input, has anyone had bronchitis and had to stop their cpap and how long did it take to get better? I've met my 90 day initial trial of cpap for Medicare but I'm not sure how they determine compliance after that period of time. I know I don't own the machine for about 13 months or so. I need some encouragement or advice please.
To answer the question about getting sick and stopping CPAP, you may need to check your water to make sure using only distilled and changing daily, also the humidifier definitely helps with dry throat but not sure if it will heal bronchitis as it will be soothing but its a virus or mold that might be causing it.
There also is a problem that many don't figure out is that the machine can get mildew in where the machine attaches to the hose and the moisture can travel back into the CPAP causing molding and mildew issues and people get problems like what your talking about. Even if you clean your hoses every night you could still be leaving the main hose from the cpap hooked up all the time and this is where mold can build up and then you breathe it in.
I just wanted to add that you have hit the nail on the head as to the side effects of CPAP machine, They are amazing for getting those first few nights of sleep but for the long term they should be discontinued and by that I mean getting body to a much healthier state and taking in the proper minerals to balance your body so that it stops dis-functioning. The problem with sleep apnea is many people and doctors believe that their is nothing they can do beyond CPAP except for surgery. Their is many things that you can do and should do to get health back in order. The main thing is cutting certain foods that the body is looking at as poison that it is constantly detoxing.
When you have sleep apnea you have two options to go to a doctor or try to change your life and start finding natural ways to get your body back into shape as sleep apnea is the body's warning sign for help and by just using things that get rid of symptoms will only enable the problem to continue and to stay the same. For example CPAP is just forcing air in the throat and covering up the body's symptoms of sleep apnea. The problem is that when the bodys symptoms are covered up your not realizing that the body is not really healing only keeping symptoms at bay. When you wear a CPAP for a long time you have to get another sleep study done as it can stop working as effective as the machine will make the throat weaker. The goal while on CPAP is to start fueling your body with live natural foods as well as first cutting high allergy foods such as Gluten, Dairy, Corn and basically anything proceeded and not in original organic form. Also eating less at a time as well as using herbs such as marjoram can help. Taking the proper and correct minerals is a big deal and getting out in the sun and exercising as well as strengthening your breathing with Qi Gong.
Eating standard american food pyramid diet and not changing lifestyle and just relying on CPAP will just lead to more dysfunction. But just wanted to throw it out there that if you can't afford or don't want to get a polysomnograph test or (sleep study) then this is a way to find out for yourself. Also it is good to continue to do this type of sleep video monitoring all the time to find what (triggers, activities or foods) caused a "bad nights sleep full of apneas" and also what (triggers, activities or foods) encouraged and "helped good a nights sleep with significantly less apneas." By learning this simple little trick you can heal yourself just like anything else as before it was hard to heal as it happened when you where unconscious. Now when you monitor yourself you can be much more aware at what activities sleep pattern or foods before bed are bad and causing sleep apnea to occur.
If you sleep without your CPAP try also doing a test, You can start filming yourself at night and do this a few nights in a row and note what you ate throughout the day and how late you ate it before bed. Then document everything in a journal.
If you can have your dog sleep with you (Sometimes they will wake you up when your not breathing so you can at least not be suffocating for long periods) or have a bed partner try to monitor you one night as they stay awake. You will start to see some patterns and see the impact of what you ate and then see how poorly you slept. The only way to really get better is by focusing on total body detoxification and balancing and healing deficiencies. The more internal work you do and the more your body is healed the faster sleep apnea will just disappear on its own as your body is capable of healing itself but we get in our own way by eating the way we do.
I hope this can help you track down the part of your machine that possibly has mold or mildew and get that at least taken care of so you can start getting good sleep and then having the energy to start changing your life and balancing your body to heal the root of sleep apnea and not just cover up the symptoms.
