Intro, mask help, and questions.

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
Bedtime snories
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2015 4:42 pm

Intro, mask help, and questions.

Post by Bedtime snories » Thu Feb 26, 2015 1:26 pm

Hello, I've been lurking a bit and will continue to do so, but thought I would introduce myself.

My wife is working on her doctorate to become a Nurse Practitioner (I'm very proud of her), and the doctors office where she does her clinicals seems to prescribe a fair amount of home sleep studies. Since I haven't slept well in several years, and she hasn't either (I thought due to my tossing, turning, and snoring) they loaned us two home study machines for three nights.

My wife only got a few hours on one night total of usable data because she kept disconnecting everything in her sleep. I had three good nights of usable data, and we were both diagnosed with sleep apnea. Our recommended pressures were the same a minimum of 4 and maximum of 16. After our insurance took forever to get things going, and supposedly changing DMEs due to trouble working with the first we finally were able to start therapy on Jan. 23, 2015.

I'm missing my first night sleep study results, but here are the last two nights (3 pages per night) if your interested.

If it matters, at the time of the test I was a 37 year old male. I am still male, but older by a standard year, and possibly more in anti-sleep years.
http://s48.photobucket.com/user/petveedub/library/Apnea

After a couple of nights of adjustment to wearing her mask my wife seems to be noticing a good improvement in sleep quality. I however, haven't had a full nights sleep since starting, and feel like I was getting better sleep before I started therapy. My first mask, a mirage fx wide, the DME guy felt I needed leaked at various times during the night, gave me a sore on the bridge of my nose, and could be slid up, down, and to both sides more than I thought it should. The DME didn't really do any fitting and didn't seem to have more than a basic knowledge or concern about fit. I gave it almost a full month, and went back and got a standard mirage fx. It does seem to seal better, but is probably too tight around my nose.

With the wide mask I could set my minimum pressure up a bit, 6 or so, and I could breath a little more easily while awake. With the smaller mask I "need" to set the pressure higher to counter the tighter fit. However, where with the wide mask I seemed to swallow a small tolerable amount of air, with the smaller mask I seem to swallow a more uncomfortable amount of air. I wonder if a nasal pillow would work better, but am unsure if I could tolerate it being in my nose. Also, I have been somewhat congested for unknown reasons fairly regularly since early last year, and don't know how that would affect a nasal pillow. I do seem to move around quite a bit in my sleep, and think a full face mask would still get knocked loose and create leaks, but it might help with the air swallowing. I do not believe I breathe through my mouth much at night, but their have been "only a few" instances of waking with my mouth open, over my month of use.

My biggest problem is waking and not being able to fall back asleep for 2-3 hours. Usually if this happens, when I finally fall back asleep, I sleep for several hours until I seem to wake naturally. This was the case before therapy as well. It doesn't happen every night, but many nights. I do however wake multiple times every night, but have been able to fall back asleep fairly easily most times.

I have downloaded and used sleepyhead, but am still trying to understand all of the information. Luckily I like machines and tinkering, so working at understanding the machine and its data is sort of fun. At least, as much as it can be when I would rather sleep all night, and tinker with something else.

The sleep report on my machine typically shows less than 2 events per hour, a leak rate of 5 l/m, and AHI, total AI, and central AI at 1 or less.

Overall I seem to be having good therapy while asleep, I'm just not getting enough sleep. I know others have it far worse than me, so please don't take my ramblings as complaining or whining, I just want, like everyone else I'm sure, to get the best sleep I can.

One last question, and then I'm done, I promise. I try to go to bed as close to 10:00pm as possible. Usually I get up sometime between 8:00am and 10:00am, especially after being awake for a while at night. Would it be better to go ahead and get up at 6:00am or 7:00am, having been in bed for 8 or 9 hours, to make my possible sleep schedule more regular even if I was awake for a few hours?

I do apologize for such a long and probably rambling first post. If you got this far, thank you.

Billy

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OkyDoky
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Re: Intro, mask help, and questions.

Post by OkyDoky » Thu Feb 26, 2015 1:47 pm

This is a link to help you post your daily Sleepy results and maybe find help for your rest. https://sleep.tnet.com/reference/tips/imgur The low setting it problematic for a lot of people and the increasing pressures disturbs some people so a look at a good and bad day may help others to give you suggestions.
ResMed Aircurve 10 VAUTO EPAP 11 IPAP 15 / P10 pillows mask / Sleepyhead Software / Back up & travel machine Respironics 760

elizabeth25
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Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 6:47 pm

Re: Intro, mask help, and questions.

Post by elizabeth25 » Fri Feb 27, 2015 11:46 am

Billy, I am pretty new to all this cpap stuff, but I wanted to suggest something. When I went to a sleep doctor last fall, besides some of the usual complaints (tired, snoring, morning headache), I was also concerned that I wake up so many times per night and that I often have "middle insomnia" (example: wake at 2:30 and then be awake for 2 hours). I had mild apnea and started on a cpap machine. In addition the doctor said I was spending too much time in bed and that I'd lost "sleep pressure". Which, apparently, you need in order to sleep all night. I thought I was trying to improve my situation by trying to sleep more, but I had been making it worse by forming a habit to sleep (or try to) long. So over about 6 weeks I gradually decreased the amount of time in bed. (This was in addition to all the the regular sleep hygiene things.) I started at 9 hours and went down to 7. Always getting up at the same time. It was not easy! I could take 15 minute naps if needed. It totally worked. The last time I was awake in the middle of the night was before Christmas. Google "sleep maintenance insomnia" and you can read about it. (I thought I didn't have insomnia because I always feel right to sleep when I went to bed!!)
Good Luck. It's a journey.
E25

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Elizabeth25

Bedtime snories
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Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2015 4:42 pm

Re: Intro, mask help, and questions.

Post by Bedtime snories » Thu Mar 12, 2015 10:00 am

Thanks for the replies. I've been busy, so haven't been able to post sleepyhead results yet, but I will as soon as I get a chance. As far as waking and staying awake at night, it seems to just be periodic. Usually I am able to go back to sleep fairly quickly.

I'm going to see about using a nasal pillow mask, to see if that helps with the short awakenings, and go from there.

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