Six months in, numbers look good. How should I feel?

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
ZzzCatcher
Posts: 35
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 9:41 am
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Six months in, numbers look good. How should I feel?

Post by ZzzCatcher » Sat Nov 18, 2017 7:51 pm

I've been on PAP for 6 months now, and I'm regularly getting 8+ hours of sleep with a nice AHI. But I'm still finding I want to hit "snooze" a few times in the morning, and get sleepy no later than previously. I still want to nap on weekends. When I first started APAP, I hopped up in the morning much more easily, but that's no longer the case.

Should I be peppier and brighter in the morning, or should I just be happy I'm sleeping more soundly, not snoring like a bear with a chainsaw, and accept that I'm not one of those people that suddenly becomes a bundle of refreshed energy?

If you want to see, I've selected a few random Sleepyhead daily reports as examples. They're at https://imgur.com/a/o2GeM I'll confess that I've had a consistently rough time truly and fully understanding all the stats. Even looking at the glossary, I'm not quite able to completely grok things - I'm one of those people that prefers "this value should be X or lower, that value should be Y or lower".
I'm a newbie. If I do something stupid, just let me know and I'll try to fix it.

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Julie
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Joined: Tue Feb 28, 2006 12:58 pm

Re: Six months in, numbers look good. How should I feel?

Post by Julie » Sat Nov 18, 2017 8:18 pm

I would try raising your min. pressure by a couple of cms and see if you feel better. And we can't tell you how to feel, but if you don't think you're quite there yet, see if you can optimize things.

ZzzCatcher
Posts: 35
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 9:41 am
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Re: Six months in, numbers look good. How should I feel?

Post by ZzzCatcher » Sun Nov 19, 2017 10:24 pm

Thanks! I'm just unsure what a "correct" night's sleep should feel like, and therefore if I'm getting one. And, by extension, what I should optimize in order to optimize my therapy.

I actually started in a strange situation, since my doctor sent me for a sleep study of her own volition, and I was perplexed. I didn't think I was a "bad" sleeper. I snored, and I hated getting up in the morning, but both of those seem fairly normal. Then my study showed my breathing was a bit of a dog's breakfast overnight, so off to APAPland I went. I do see some improvement - I don't desperately want a nap at work every afternoon, for example. But I'm wondering if I should feel like a whole new person, so to speak. I still do kinda crave naps, and boy, do I still hate getting up in the morning.
I'm a newbie. If I do something stupid, just let me know and I'll try to fix it.

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Pugsy
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Location: Missouri, USA

Re: Six months in, numbers look good. How should I feel?

Post by Pugsy » Sun Nov 19, 2017 10:51 pm

You sound like me. I have never in my life been a morning person and successful cpap therapy sure didn't turn me into to one.
CPAP is unlikely to make us be something we never have been in terms of waking up and being bright eyed and bushy tailed even when we didn't have OSA. For quite a while I wondered why I wasn't a "new person" either but then I realized that OSA hasn't been with me all my life (mine came as a nice calling card from Mother Nature after menopause hit) and it was unrealistic for me to expect cpap to make me into something I never was to start with.

Now I have noticed a direct correlation between hours of sleep and how I might feel during the day in general. If I get 7 plus hours of decent sleep the need for a nap is greatly reduce....but I still am not a "morning" person. I try to never schedule anything that requires my having to get up and around early in the mornings. It's a joke around our house because my husband is a morning person (always has been) and his idea of "early" and my idea are 2 different time frames.
When I get less than 7 hours I can pretty much count on getting sleepy and wanting to take a nap during the day and in general having my butt drag around and having to make an extra effort to get much done.
All this is compounded by other health issues that I have that also mess with my sleep quality and quantity...so I came to accept that effective cpap therapy doesn't/can't make me into something I never was or feel any different in that regard.

Now the stuff directly related to sleep apnea...yes...I have seen great improvement in that area.
Like I used to wake at 7:30 AM and be wanting and desperately needing a nap at 9:00 AM...now it's around 5 PM if it happens after a short night of sleep.
But I still don't like getting up early and I still need a few hours in the morning to get my motors running in top form...and I would be that way even without OSA or cpap.

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