Need HELP!!!

My name is Simon Warner and I am a 42 year old male with serious sleep issues. I have been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. I have a CPAP machine and have used both a nasal pillow mask and a full face mask. I have had the machine for years. I still have sleep issues. I have tried everything under the sun, from melatonin to 5HTP to teas to essential oils and nothing has helped. I average about 4 hours of sleep a night. That sleep is restless though and I wake up multiple times. The best I can sleep for is around 2 hours max before waking up. Most days I wake up early and cannot go back to sleep sometimes. I always need a nap by the afternoon. My head is foggy when I wake up and I also have a dry mouth. I am also having super vivid dreams, some normal and some nightmares. I feel awake during them and remember them the next day. I have anger/irritability/and moodiness from lack of sleep. I have a lack of energy. I experience memory issues and lack of concentration. I also have reflux and stomach issues - I always need an alka seltzer. Those are most of my symptoms. My only health issues are high blood pressure. I take Telmisa/HCTZ and Amplodine for my blood pressure daily. I also have to have TRT and my levels are tested every 6 months and average from 600-1000. I exercise at least 3 times a week. I'm not overweight and I eat healthy (currently following a low carb, low cal, high protein diet). I don't smoke or use tobacco products, I drink wine/alcohol a few times a week moderately at most. No mental health issues. Does anyone have any suggestions and what a could be causing the machine not to work with my apnea? I'm thinking I may have insomnia also. Any suggestions on what I can try to help me get the sleep I need because I am at a loss of what to do???
Thanks in advance!

I'd suggest that you register for the site, and add your cpap machine and mask data to your posts, using the User Control Panel (upper left hand side) to fill it out (User Control Panel -> Profile -> Edit equipment). If your cpap supports sleep data, you can download and install software to look at your sleep data, and try and see what's happening and how your therapy can be improved. There's lots of help here for that.

That's where I'd start in a nutshell, but until you're registered for the site and have added your equipment information to your posts, there's really not a lot to say about increasing the effectiveness of your therapy.

What machine do you have? I see unsure, Read the name plate and tell us what model you have. Hopefully you have a data capable model and that data will tell us a lot of what is going on. Do you know if your machine has a data card (If ResMed it is on the left side)?

The SleepyHead software (see my sig) will enable you and us to view the data. Until you have 4 posts list the url of your charts without the http or the URL/link tags.

Nobody here likes to see people having trouble.

SleepRider on Apneaboard has experience with several of your issues.

Fred

I have the Resmed Auto Set II EPR

Simonwarner42 wrote:I have the Resmed Auto Set II EPR

Sounds like S8 model(?)...needs special card and card reader to access data. Limited info on LCD screen

Without specific info on the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of your CPAP treatment, I'll just speak in general. Making sure your treatment is optimized is a really big deal. I was 5 months in and suffering greatly when I found myself here. A few tweaks of my settings and I began to see improvement. Some questions for you...
1. Are you sleeping with your upper body elevated to help reduce risk of your reflux being the cause of wakings?
2. Do you use the ramp feature? If so, do you hit it and start over when you wake up? I use to do that not realizing I did it so frequently I was never allowing the machine to get to a therapeutic pressure. I hear some newer machines make this not such an issue as they respond to your needs even during ramp, but if not, overuse of ramp can be detrimental to treatment.
3. Do you have any issues with extreme restlessness or jumpy legs? Other sleep disorders can be contributors.
4. Have your doctors ruled out other medical causes of your poor sleep? The first one that comes to mind is thyroid dysfunction.
Good luck sorting through things to try to get better sleep. So much of what you describe can be attributed to the poor sleep. Hopefully you're on track to finding answers.

Thanks everyone. I've had the resmed since 2009. I don't believe it does any data that I'ever ever seen. I track my sleep with my Fitbit flex 2. It shows my restlessness and awake time. I switched to the full face from a nasal pillow thinking that might help and no such luck. This lack of sleep and horrible dreams is killing me.

If you have had your machine for years you may be able to replace it, You need to check with your Dr. and Insurance to see what they allow. In my area I've heard both 3 years and 5 years.

If you are paying on your own members here have helped locate affordable data-capable machines. Given the data capable machine you can see on the forum helping with interpetation of the data and improvements in therapy happening.

The suggestion to register was a good one. That way, people can communicate with you backchannel. It sounds like there is a lot going on here that you may not want to discuss on a public board. Feel free to backchannnel me.

If you can get another machine check back before committing. They will probably steer you to a basic no frills machine. I got a machine that doesn't supply enough data and now I'm looking to get another. Had I only known at the time.

Here is the information from my machine. I will be honest that when I got this back in 2009 the doctor basically said here it's auto set, but the mask on, turn it on, and go to sleep. I've never messed with the settings and I did find some data thanks to you guys. Don't know what any of it means tho.
Mode: Autoset
Min Press: 5.0
Max Press: 14.0
Max Settling: 25
Mask: Mir Full
Tube Length: 2 m
H3i
SmartStart: Off
Leak Alert: Off
EPR: Fulltime
EPR Level: 3
EPR Access: OFF

Date for one month:
Pressure: 8.6
Leak: .30 L/S
AHI: 4.2
AI: .1
HI: 4.2

For six months:
Pressure: 8.8
Leak: .12 L/S
AHI: 2.6
AI: .3
HI: 2.1

Maybe y'all understand this!
Thanks!