Newbie here: 2 nights on a CPAP

Hello everyone,

I wanted to introduce myself. I am in the very first stages of this journey. For the past year, my partner has been telling me that he worries at night because he hears me gasping for air. I finally went to see my doctor. While he told me that it sounded like sleep apnea, he also pointed out that I don't fit the "normal" profile - I'm a very active 53 yo, very fit, work out (almost) daily, and I wasn't experiencing daytime fatigue or headaches. But he wanted me to go get a sleep study. I literally lost the first referral he wrote me - honestly, I wasn't taking this very seriously. Then something switched a couple of months ago. I got tired. I couldn't catch up on sleep. On the best days, I needed to nap in the afternoon. On my worst days, I woke up feeling like I'd been hit over the head with a hammer. I felt like I was seeing double - even though I wasn't. I went back to my primary doctor and got referral #2. I called, made the appointment for the sleep study, and had that done two weeks ago. In the morning, they gave me a follow up appointment to go over my sleep study - at the end of April. That was the first possible opening. On Monday of this week I got a call - the doctor had seen my sleep study and I needed to come in immediately!

So on Wednesday of this week I found out that I have severe obstructive sleep apnea. Turns out, skinny people with long thin necks are susceptible to developing sleep apnea! It was a two hour appointment with lots of education with a fitting for a mask at the end. The complicating factor in all of this is when I was 25, I suffered severe facial trauma - lots of broken bones and reconstructive surgery to put my face back together again. 25 years later, things are still very tender in that area, and I am left with chronic facial pain. Originally, we thought that the nasal pillows would be the way to go, but they felt too intrusive. I now have just the nose mask with a RemStar Pro 2 loaner CPAP machine.

It's been two nights with it now. It's not horrible, just weird. I have competing reactions - first, a deep feeling of relaxation and openness knowing that I will be able to breath and that my partner will get a full night's sleep, and second, a feeling of claustrophobia having something attached to my face and air forcing it's way into my nose. I have learned how to ramp it up, and the mask seems a lot easier to get on and off should I have to get up in the middle of the night.

Now I'm in the middle of insurance pre-authorization hell, waiting for Anthem to authorize another sleep study with the loaner machine, after which I will have to wait for authorization to get my own machine...blah blah blah.

So far, the biggest challenge for me is this: to handle my chronic facial pain, I need sleep. To get sleep, I have to attach something to my face that aggravates the pain...it feels like a vicious cycle, but I am 100% ready to jump in and figure all this out, even if it means hurting more in the short run. Hopefully it is a short run...or at least a medium run.

I'm very glad to have found this group. I'm certain I'll have a lot of questions moving forward, and glad to have a resource. Thank you all!

Welcome to the forum.

Which nasal mask are you using? Some are less in terms of weight than others.

Hi Pugsy! Thanks for the welcome. I have a ResMed Mirage FX.

Have a look at the ResMed Swift FX Nano nasal cushion mask. It is lighter and has less "stuff" on your face. You might find it less annoying.
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/resmed ... dgear.html

Which nasal pillow mask did you try and not care for?

I'm not sure - honestly, just a few minutes before I had just been told I would have to use a CPAP and my head was still spinning. I remember thinking that trying to breath out of them was so difficult, and it felt more natural with the mask I ended up with.

Okay...if you at some time do decide to try the Swift FX Nano nasal cushion and want to revisit the nasal pillows...let me know because the Swift FX nasal pillows will fit on the Nano headgear and short hose...and I usually have a some spare nasal pillows for the Swift FX that I could just give you to go with the Nano headgear if you ever want to try them again.
Perhaps you had the wrong size or was fitted wrong or you had one of the not quite so nice models or maybe it was a pressure issue and once you are more acclimated to this whole process the nasal pillows won't be so problematic.

The Swift FX nasal pillows (and the Nano cushion) can also be used with the Bella Loops which just go around the ears...so even less stuff on your face and head....so that's another option.

Look at the Sleep Weaver mask on Cpap.com - it's fabric - and it might just be the right one for you everything else being equal. The nasal version has better reviews/results I think than the newer full face one.

Thank you Julie and Pugsy. It sounds like there's quite a bit of choices out there for me!

Last night was a hard night, and I'm very tired this morning. I have some nasal congestion (I think the weeks of exhaustion led to a cold); when I lay on my left side the mask leaked, blowing air onto my eye; there was a strange sort of "bubbling" of air out of my mouth through out the night (I don't sleep with my mouth open and I didn't have a problem with dry mouth - just a sensation of a bubble of air escaping through my mouth), and I was particularly aware of the air escaping through the mask vent and hitting my arm and hand throughout the night - almost hyper aware of that.

These all seem like small bothersome details that will probably go away over time. I will say that I'm gratefully surprised that the hose isn't getting tangled when I turn from one side to the other - I think that was my biggest fear, so finding that not to be a problem is kind of awesome.

By the way - I did shave off my goatee yesterday, and the mask that I currently have is more comfortable now.

Julie wrote:Look at the Sleep Weaver mask on Cpap.com - it's fabric - and it might just be the right one for you everything else being equal. The nasal version has better reviews/results I think than the newer full face one.

I used either the Sleep Weaver or another mask similar to it (the nasal one, not a full-face one). There really isn't a more comfortable mask except . . . I found that I had to make the bottom pretty tight across my upper lip, to the point where my upper lip started bothering me after a while. So I switched to Resmed nasal pillows. But you might want to check out the Sleep Weaver. Plus who knows, maybe they've improved it since I tried it. Really, except for how it bothered my lip, I can't imagine a more comfortable mask.

Hi Seth, thank you for the information. Luckily, my upper lip is one of the pain free regions on my face, so I'll give it a try. Do people generally have a couple of different masks? Or do they find one and stick to it?

I didn't realize what type of mask would work well until I tried a few wrong ones to help steer me. It took me about 15 days to get things moving in the right direction. I love my nasal pillows, but I have a friend who struggled with it because of his mustache. Hopefully you find a work-around with your problems. At 30 days I actually began to like the feeling of the air and the feeling is relaxing when I put the mask on..... and I was like you, I felt like I couldn't breath and was claustrophobic for several days. There is a lot to these machines and your right- this forum is the place to get your answers.

Also I am the impatient type and have high deductibles as well. My insurance DME was slow and wanted to give me their zero data and low options machine. They were slow and following their polices and restrictions was more frustration that I could stomach. I figured the $1000 I spent was well worth it and I was able to get the "much better" machine fast and start treatment right away. If you have the money, an online DME like this one might be a better route for you- and no I don't work for them- lol. I actually used a couple (including this one) and have been very happy. I figured the cost was about the same as a long weekend away vacation. I have no regrets of gong that route. I am a firm believer that nobody cares more about your heath than yourself. There is a ton of info here that will help guide you to better sleep.

Best of luck.

I also think one of the more popular ones is "AirFit P10 Nasal Pillow CPAP Mask" but everyone is different.

ski1999 wrote:At 30 days I actually began to like the feeling of the air and the feeling is relaxing when I put the mask on.....

As bad a night as I had last night, there's still a deep sense of relaxation knowing that I'm not going to have to struggle with breathing. Now to figure out all the other details!