Waking up too early in the morning

Hi folks,

I'm new here, but hoping to get your collective wisdom around the problem of waking up too early.
I did a sleep study and they saw mild apnea and gave me a CPAP (Philips One with a mouth mask) but I don't feel it is helping. With or without it I wake up around 3am to pee and then drift in and out of light sleep until 7.30am at which point I am exhausted.

For background I'm a 39 year old male and not overweight. Not sure how long this has been going on but I do have some autoimmune issues (mild Crohns disease) and feel like this increased after I had some mercury amalgams removed.

Not sure which variables to change here - is a machine unable to help with my issue in general OR are there other machines I should be trying?
How have others solved this?

Thanks so much<

More info please - what are your pressure settings? If they've been set too low (all too common!) you're not being treated properly (we can help reset them for you).

Thanks Julie. On the Philips One, ramp start is set to 4 and goes to 5 (these were the settings the rep suggested for me).

trionfare wrote:Thanks Julie. On the Philips One, ramp start is set to 4 and goes to 5 (these were the settings the rep suggested for me).

These are not realistic pressure settings

trionfare wrote:Thanks Julie. On the Philips One, ramp start is set to 4 and goes to 5 (these were the settings the rep suggested for me).

Are you saying that your pressure in the night does not go over 5?

If your prescribed pressure is 5 (is there no high pressure setting?) then you're not getting treated to speak of. 4 is the default low setting for the machine and no one can breathe at it. The ramp feature is a different thing entirely... if your pressure settings are e.g. 8 and 12, you can set the ramp to move up to 8 over a particular time period if you find it too much to mask up at 8 (most of us stop using the ramp with a few days or so of going onto Cpap unless our low pressure setting is very high), but if your prescribed setting is between 5 and 10, and you set the ramp to reach 5 over e.g. 10 mins or more, you're essentially getting 0 treatment for 10 mins (until the ramp goes off). Even if your pressure were 12, and you set the ramp to reach it over 20 mins, you wouldn't be fully treated til it got to 12... it's only function being to ease you into air blowing thru the hose into your mask and mouth, but it's not 'therapy', just convenience. So I suggest you raise your prescribed low setting pressure to e.g. 8 and if you do have a high setting (could it be 20 as set by the DME?) you put that back down to 14 (unlikely you'll need it in any case), turn off the ramp entirely, and see how you feel the next a.m. At least you'll have gotten some treatment with the low setting of 8, though in future you may even want to raise that a bit more.

I seriously doubt that your sleep study suggested you only need a pressure of 5 - if that were true, you wouldn't really qualify as needing Cpap to begin with!.

trionfare wrote:Thanks Julie. On the Philips One, ramp start is set to 4 and goes to 5 (these were the settings the rep suggested for me).

Your machine is set up to provide only 4 cm pressure for the first 45 minutes after you start therapy and ramp to 5 cm. Most of us can't even breath at those settings.

You need to turn off ramp! You can do that from the menu settings. I would strongly recommend increasing your therapy setting by 1 cm to 6.0 and see if that helps. To get into the clinical settings, turn the dial to setup, then press the main dial and ramp button together for 4 seconds. Now dial to setup, and all the settings are there.

Even though you have mild apnea, you are below therapeutic settings. If you feel starved for air, that is why.

Apologies - I misspoke. Going into Settings shows that the rep set it to an automatic mode in which the min value is 5 and the max is 20. If I understand this correctly, doesn't this seem like the most suitable setting for a newbie?

It's useless... so read my other note again... take the ramp right out of the picture and you're left with a bottom end pressure no one can inhale and that won't 'treat' zip. Nothing to do with a newbie. Each of us has a pressure that will keep our own airway open, and anything less is wasting your time and health. There's no percentage in 'working up' to your necessary pressure, accomplishes nothing and cheats you of sleep (and more).

Thanks Julie. I tried out a 7 rating last night with no ramp just to test the waters. Feel more energized but still woke up at 3. I'll try an 8 tonight and see if that helps. Any suggested tweaks to the humidifier settings?

Hello Trionfare,
I won't get into setting your pressures, etc. It looks like your off to a good start with people helping you. I'd just like to mention a couple things; first, you need to register, complete your profile, enter your equipment, etc., so folks can see what type of equipment you have to better assist you. You might want to consider downloading the software (SleepyHead) to monitor and share the results of your therapy which would make helping easier. Next, I understand that you wake early, but that's not necessarily uncommon, nor should it necessarily wreck your sleep. If you wake and go back to sleep, so that you get your 7 hours, or so, you could be fine, if you didn't have the apnea issues. Early morning is when most people experience a lot of REM, unfortunately, during REM sleep is also when many people suffer the most from apnea, so you need to know your machine is working then. Software would help in the knowing.
Next, Google good "Sleep Hygiene" and make sure you are practicing it. Irregular hours, caffeine, certain foods, etc., can have real detrimental effect on sleep. For example, if I consume caffeine after about 11 am, I will wake early and won't be able to get soundly back to sleep. It's a real bummer, because I really love coffee, but I just can't drink it after late morning. Just have a look at what's included in sleep hygiene and make sure you're not setting yourself up for poor sleep.
Welcome and good sleep to you.
j