A big THANK YOU and a bit of an introduction

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone here. I’ve been lurking for a couple months, reading a lot of back posts, searching for answers, and finding them. Without this board, I wouldn’t be where I’m at with CPAP right now. I’m sure I’ll have questions I can’t find answers for, but not right now. Reading the success stories in that 40+ pages long thread has really given hope and encouraged me to keep going.

Using a CPAP has been a long time coming for me. I thought I probably had apnea for a long time. Probably decades, and in fact. For a variety of reasons, I could not get tested. Finally 3 years ago I booked to get in to see a sleep specialist. It was a one year waiting list before I could see him. Then another year’s waiting list before I could have the sleep study (I couldn’t afford to go private). After the sleep study, I was given a rental for a home titration test, which went not well at all. The saga of find-the-right-mask-without-any-help-from-DME began. Between my bad experience with rental machine at home, bad masks, and lack of funds, it was nearly another year before I finally took the plunge and persevered.

I tried 8 different masks before finding the Airfit P10. And even then, the mask rubbed my nose raw for the first couple weeks. Left me with my nose feeling like it had been punched all night by a boxer for a while longer. It was too tight, of course. Took a while to figure out how to make the strap looser without stretching it so much it would become useless.

It’s only been five weeks now, and I’ve already seen some changes. I don’t have to get up every night, several times a night to go to the loo. I don’t have chronic nightmares anymore - which I’d had for near on 30 years. I don’t need sleeping pills to have some sleep. A colleague told me they don’t know what changed, but I don’t have as pronounced dark circles under my eyes. All wins. I went from 33 AHI during my sleep study down to consistently around 2 AHI or below (a few spikes of 4 and 5’s, but I’m not worried about it at this point). I can’t say I get up generally better rested than i used to before the CPAP, but I can’t say that I don’t either. I still have a larger number of hypoapneas than anything else, same as during the sleep study. Early days.

The machine was set with a pressure of 10, and a ramp of 5. I find it too hard to breathe with the ramp, and have found myself not using it. While double checking the pressure in Sleepyhead, I just noticed that the pressure is now at 9 (as of 27 August), and I did not change that. Puzzling.

One thing I need to settle is air escaping my lips at night. Nothing major, but annoying enough. I have a chin strap and am not a mouth breather. But during the night, air vents out of my lips. I’ve read about taping, but as I have a beard, that’s not an option. I’ve read about polydent, and acquired some. But I haven’t quite managed to glue my lips properly with that yet - I’ll be experimenting.

I hope that long term, I’ll see further improvements, especially a reduction of the chronic dysthymia that isn’t responding to either anti-depressants or therapy. And also reclaiming some mental and emotional energy after 6pm.

My experience with the DME vendor has been underwhelming, but then i didn’t expect much more. I am a wheelchair user and have long dealt with that kind of stuff. Still, one would think that a DME tech is there for more than giving you a machine, setting it up according to the doctor’s prescription (and locking those settings - and yes, i did find the information on how to go in and override that, thank you very much. I’m not doing it ’till I’ve had a 3 months follow up with my sleep specialist, but won’t hesitate to do so if it looks necessary), and saying “there you go”.

I must admit to having my hackles raised by the concept of “compliance”. I understand it, but loathe the word. This is such a patronizing medical model concept, something I’ve been fighting against as a disability rights advocate. I do use the machine every night for the whole night. But I’m not a good, compliant boy.

Anyway, this was just going to be a quick introduction, and is turning into a long post! I’ll wrap up now and say “thank you”, once again.

Bob

Welcome and I wish you much success. Sounds like you are off to a good start!

Way to go Bob... you Will be one of the successful ones as you have the right attitude to DO IT!!!!!!!!!! I hope once you have gotten your "compliance " over with, you will stick around and pass on your expertise to others that require it.
Welcome to this club of "hosers" and a big congratulations for getting it done.
Cheers
Nan

Congratulations! For the air that is escaping your mouth, you might try switching to a FF mask... it's what I have to use because my mouth just doesn't stay closed. I use the Airfit F10, and I like it better than others that I tried because it has no forehead strap.

Thanks LibraryLady, I appreciate the suggestion. Full face masks haven't worked for me. I tried a 4 of them. Problem was leaks non stop. My beard seems to be causing a problem