Newbie with a thousand questions!

[quote="rooster]...Like Carbie says, I still don't know why people flee from FFMs. [/quote]

Sheer terror of suffocating/claustrophobia!

I can't stand things on my face that's why OptiLife is my choice of mask. I'm not even sure I can handle a hybrid mask if that's what it's gonna take to stop my mouth leaks; if it comes to that, I'm gonna try self-hypnosis and de-sensitization which worked for another phobia I had.

EDIT 6/27: Last Feb, I went to the ER (doc's office was close by but they were really late coming back from lunch) to get this angry-looking red area on my ankle checked -- they wouldn't let me leave, said I had cellulitis (what the heck is that?)!!! Started me on IV antibiotics, got an OK from my primary for hospitalization for IV antibiotics. I had just picked up my new mask from the sleep lab across the street but no CPAP...had to use their machine, huge desktop behemoth, and their mask (something about legal issues, for pete's sake my new mask was in it's original packaging)...no pillow masks in stock, ended with a F&P nasal mask of some sort that hissed when I breathed in, precisely the same sound as I've heard when I have a mouth leak and trained myself to wake up to...yeah, you guessed it, I kept waking up. After I told the RT that I was terrified, he put an O2 line in the mask and told me to close my eyes as he fit the mask on my face; it was as ghastly as I'd imagined. I kept reminding myself that it was better than no CPAP, but I still had miserably fragmented sleep. Finally the next day, I got someone to disassemble my ResMed and bring me supplies for my "spa visit." There were no probs with bringing in and using my own CPAP (my apnea doc is on staff there and holds some Director position) nor with the staff who were all familar with apnea and CPAPs. When I got my ResMed assembled, I poured in the sterile water the hospital found for me, put on the mask, and went to sleep for the rest of the day; I was so exhausted they changed my IVs several times and I never woke up. Apnea...what an adventure!

USEFUL TIP: Buy some long Velcro strips. I use them around my 6-ft hoses when they're packed and to corral my power cord. I used it in the hospital to 'anchor' my hose to the raised sides of the bed so the hose wouldn't dangle or get tangled around something. I keep my ResMed on a piece of that non-slip plastic (drawer liner plastic?), so it doesn't slide on smooth surfaces.

Hey, whatever it takes, whatever works for YOU, Muse. Good luck!

rooster wrote:That's why we just need to get on with a full face mask. Like Carbie says, I still don't know why people flee from FFMs.

Fact is, everyone's different. I had bad hayfever while I was in Milwaukee, and had to go to my full-face. I got very poor therapy as a result... massive leaks, IPAP plastered against the maximum, miserable lines on my face every morning, dozens of arousals because the mask is so uncomfortable... the only consolation was that it was better than NO therapy. I'm now back on my pillows-mask and doing much better.

And, I absolutely could not have used a full-face mask when I started therapy. Just looking at one started me shaking in terror. I cried, coming out of the doctor's office with the diagnosis because the thought of having to wear one upset me so. But finding this Forum, learning about all the different masks... that salvaged things.

I'm glad full-face works for you and Carbonman. There isn't a "best" mask or type of masks -- it's only what works for the individual.

Gosh, am I slow I just found out there are 723 pages!!! to this forum and I've only been reading page 1
I'll bet all my thousand questions are already answered on here, but it'll take days (or weeks) for me to read all those pages! But I'm going to page two now, so later, everyone

Gerald wrote: If you get your sleep problems under control, I'm betting that many...if not most...of your health problems will fade away.

Gerald

This is what I have discovered, after just 4 nights on the REMstar. I do not exaggerate to say that my life is transformed. Apart from extreme early morning fatigue, other symptoms that seem to have completely disappeared are as follows:
- Night sweats. The last time I experienced these I was months later and only serendipidously diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma (IIB, massive mediastinal). NEVER ignore this important symptom, hard as it may be to interpret. It took a motorcycle accident to reveal the facts.
- Extreme nocturia. I've gone from 4-5 down to 1-2. Pity the pharynx doesn't control the prostate ....
- Headaches, of varying severity starting immediately on waking.
- Difficulty with focused and sustained mental effort - a major problem in my profession (pharmaceutical research and development).
- Irritability, short-term memory problems and a host of other psychological sequelae. Good riddance to all that.

Chronic REM deprivation is very, very bad. I call the REMstar my dream machine. The somnogram shows that my REM (every blasted one) was disrupted by severe oxygen desaturations, shockingly so.

I was totally unaware of even the possibility that that I might have SA and only took the polysomnogram because FAA Medical (I'm a private pilot) insisted that I do it to keep flying. My GI doc had recommended the SA evaluation in his report after I went into respiratory depression following i.v. Midazolam + fentanyl sedation (for colonoscopy) so I reluctantly went ahead. I thought it was a false positive ....... ouch!

Serendipity strikes again - don't knock it.

mermer40 wrote:Gosh, am I slow I just found out there are 723 pages!!! to this forum and I've only been reading page 1
I'll bet all my thousand questions are already answered on here, but it'll take days (or weeks) for me to read all those pages! But I'm going to page two now, so later, everyone

That's what makes the search so useful....all that knowledge out there amongst all the posts waiting to be rediscovered.

The Dreamer.