Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
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Sir NoddinOff
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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by Sir NoddinOff » Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:29 pm

Not to diminish your conclusions or feelings, but about once a week someone comes on this webpage and says exactly the same thing. It's natural to expect instant results from this compelling technology, but it's very unrealistic to expect a miracle in less than a week. For a very few lucky individuals it is a walk in the park - however for most of the rest of us it's a day to day adventure with many ups and downs. I hope this information doesn't turn you off to CPAP, however it is the truth, or at least as I perceive it. Keep coming back to CPAPtalk with your issues and we will be here to help you out. You seem smart and resourceful so I think you will eventually do very well with your therapy.

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Mozart22
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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by Mozart22 » Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:36 pm

By the way, how likely do you think it is that I can overcome my moderate sleep apnea if I manage to lose 60 to 70 pounds and exercise more?
Are the chances are decent or is it wishful thinking? I'd hate to have to sleep looking like Darth Vader for the rest of my life, I'm only 26.

I would hope that if I lost a significant amount of weight I could get another sleep study and if my AHI was good enough I could stop using the APAP.
In my sleep study, as well as on Sleepyhead, it says I have a lot more Hypopnea Events than Apnea events. The sleep study also noted 5 central apnea
events, compared to 15 OSA events, and 123 Hypopnea Events.

If a lot of weight loss doesn't improve my AHI enough then I guess I'm stuck looking like a fighter jet pilot, unless I'm able to get
Provent therapy to work or unless I get surgery. On that "Doctors" show on TV they showed a lady who had surgery that cured her
sleep apnea. Supposedly the surgeon used a new laser-like knife that is less invasive, so the healing time was quicker and less painful.

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Mozart22
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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by Mozart22 » Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:42 pm

Sir NoddinOff wrote:Not to diminish your conclusions or feelings, but about once a week someone comes on this webpage and says exactly the same thing. It's natural to expect instant results from this compelling technology, but it's very unrealistic to expect a miracle in less than a week. For a very few lucky individuals it is a walk in the park - however for most of the rest of us it's a day to day adventure with many ups and downs. I hope this information doesn't turn you off to CPAP, however it is the truth, or at least as I perceive it. Keep coming back to CPAPtalk with your issues and we will be here to help you out. You seem smart and resourceful so I think you will eventually do very well with your therapy.
Thank you, you make a good point. But here's the thing. I did expect APAP to take a few days or a couple weeks to improve my energy levels.
What I did NOT expect was for things to get worse. That is what made me start this thread... the fact that I feel even more tired. After my
10 hour sleep last, all with the APAP, and a low AHI and low leak rates, I wake up feeling worse than before.

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Pugsy
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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by Pugsy » Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:45 pm

Mozart22 wrote:After my
10 hour sleep last, all with the APAP, and a low AHI and low leak rates, I wake up feeling worse than before.
We sure don't expect to feel worse.
Did you sleep the entire 10 hours without waking up at all? Did you have trouble going to sleep? Did you wake frequently for whatever reason? Are you taking any meds now at all?

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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by Guest » Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:51 pm

The pressure changes are wrecking your sleep. THAT'S why you're not feeling rested.
Try setting your machine to CPAP mode and a straight pressure for awhile and see how that goes. (maybe at about 10 cm.)

.

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kaiasgram
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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by kaiasgram » Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:52 pm

Hi Mozart (love your username!) -- So, it appears you're not getting optimal therapy, at least not yet. It is possible to have a good-looking AHI but still have some compromised respiration, enough to interfere with quality of sleep but not enough to have frank apnea events. For example, if you stop breathing for 9 seconds your machine won't flag an apnea because it's less than 10 seconds -- but that doesn't mean it didn't affect you or your sleep. Or you could be having some degree of airway resistance for long periods of time, not enough to cause a complete obstruction but enough to keep your body from resting and staying in deep stage sleep. At least with starting to use Sleepyhead you'll be able to start examining these questions more closely.

I do think that some people are sensitive to such wide pressure swings while they sleep, and it is also true that pressure doesn't increase instantly when it senses you need more pressure, it takes some time. You could be going on a "wild ride" at night with that wide open range, even though you're asleep. So I have no problem understanding why a person can actually feel worse and more tired after starting CPAP.

It would be great if you could post your SH graphs from Friday, Saturday and Sunday. People might spot some things and ask you to zoom in on certain blocks of time to see more closely what might have been happening.

Most 26-year-olds have no idea what a cpap machine is -- I respect you a lot for how you're handling your diagnosis and I wish you were getting a better payoff in terms of how you feel. But it is early, and now you know your therapy is not yet optimized, so there's room to turn this crummy trend around. Keep posting here, Pugsy and several other top-notch cPappers will help you a lot, and you're likely to learn more here than you'll ever learn from your doctors, respiratory therapists, and machine providers.

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Sir NoddinOff
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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by Sir NoddinOff » Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:56 pm

Mozart22 wrote:Are the chances are decent or is it wishful thinking? I'd hate to have to sleep looking like Darth Vader for the rest of my life, I'm only 26.
I've suffered from sleep apnea since my mid-thirties. I lost fifty pounds and found that I did sleep a bit better, but not nearly as good as I'd wished for. I eventually got my nasal turbinates reduced with surgery and also had my deviated septum repaired. Again some improvement but nothing spectacular. I also tried several different mechanical devices to mitigate my sleep apnea. All to no real avail.

I guess what I'm saying is that, IMO, many of the alternative tactics to cure sleep apnea are usually not very successful... currently CPAP is the gold standard, there's not much dispute of that in the medical literature. As far as the Darth Vader and being young stuff, I really don't have an answer for that, other than to say everybody has to make those personal decisions based on what's important to them.

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I like my ResMed AirFit F10 FFM - reasonably low leaks for my ASV therapy. I'm currently using a PR S1 AutoSV 960P Advanced. I also keep a ResMed S9 Adapt as backup. I use a heated Hibernite hose. Still rockin' with Win 7 by using GWX to stop Win 10.

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Pugsy
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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by Pugsy » Mon Dec 10, 2012 9:16 pm

Will losing weight mean you get to lose the machine? Maybe...maybe not. Remember there are a lot of skinny people out here using the machine. What have you got to lose by trying? Just some weight that you need to lose anyway. You won't know unless you try and there is no down side to losing the extra pounds.

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kaiasgram
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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by kaiasgram » Mon Dec 10, 2012 9:22 pm

Mozart22 wrote:By the way, how likely do you think it is that I can overcome my moderate sleep apnea if I manage to lose 60 to 70 pounds and exercise more?
There's no way to know until you get there. Some people have reported needing lower pressures once they've lost weight. Not a ton of people report that they're cured of their OSA though -- or at least they don't hang around these here parts!

BTW, "moderate" refers to frequency of events, not how obstructed your airway is. You could have mild apnea and need a high pressure due to anatomical characteristics of your airway, or you could have severe apnea and only require a little pressure to keep your airway open. So the fact that your apnea is moderate doesn't help predict what would happen when you lose weight.

Nevertheless, don't lose hope. Even if losing weight doesn't get you off cpap, you're young and perhaps in your lifetime a less invasive (or at least less obnoxious!) way of treating sleep apnea will be developed. So don't conclude that you'll be a masked man for the rest of your life -- that'll just make it harder on you right now. Hang in there.

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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by BlackSpinner » Mon Dec 10, 2012 9:31 pm

Mozart22 wrote:By the way, how likely do you think it is that I can overcome my moderate sleep apnea if I manage to lose 60 to 70 pounds and exercise more?
.
The stats for weight loss surgery are 49% get rid of the sleep apnea eventually. The other % - the weight was probably one of the side effects of the OSA.

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hyperlexis
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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by hyperlexis » Mon Dec 10, 2012 9:51 pm

You answered your own questions.

1.) Start exercising and lose some of the weight. That will do more good for your health and sleepiness than anything. Good, regular workouts should make you feel more rested and refreshed, not to mention the other health benefits -- but it may take time to adjust.

2.) Go into your clinical settings menu on the machine and turn on the Opti-Start feature. It will adjust your start pressure every 30 hours based on your average need. Keeping your machine at 4/20 is too wide a setting. (And I know because my machine was set at 4/20 by my MD....).

I never had a follow-up titration study and I regret it. I just can't sleep on my back without snoring unless the pressure hits a high level, over 13 or so which sometimes happens with my APAP. So I have to fall asleep on my side, but that sucks because it means the mask hits the pillow which causes leaks or noise or otherwise wakes me up during the night. Sooooooo I too have not had some magical renewal after starting CPAP -- I'm still waking up tired. Why, exactly, I can't say for sure but I think it has something to do with my pressures being too low. So I have turned on Opti-Start with the hope that it will better customize the pressures I need, eventually.....

Hope this helps!

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Julie
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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by Julie » Mon Dec 10, 2012 10:26 pm

Hi - I wonder about a couple of things - are you known to have low blood pressure, because the machine is likely to lower it even further, and it could possibly be affecting you til you get going in the am. The other thing - have you had your thyroid checked lately? So many of the symptoms are the same as for apnea and you could have a coincidental case of hypoT.

I do think you owe it to yourself to try a FF mask, possibly the Quattro FX which is so popular, or one of the other hybrids, etc. because even if no (nasal) mask leaks are reported, it's kind of irrelevant if your mouth breathing once asleep. And Cpap, nasal or otherwise, especially at high pressures, often kicks off mouth breathing you never had previously - all that air being pumped in. You might be cheating yourself by not checking it out (and straps don't always do a great job).

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Pualani
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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by Pualani » Mon Dec 10, 2012 11:02 pm

This is very interesting; as a newbie I am learning a lot from this thread.

I can't help wondering if although sleep deprived, you might be sleeping too much? Somewhere I read that sleeping 8 hours is better than 10. I wish I could find the article.

I found that when I am sleep deprived, it takes me all day to wake up. I wouldn't start feeling any energy until late afternoon. I learned that I just had to make myself do some exercise in the morning to get things moving and then I would feel better.

I did see a news piece on TV about a young man wih sleep apnea who lost 35 pounds after starting CPAP. So if you stick with the CPAP perhaps that all by itself, will give you an edge in loosing some weight. But you need to give it more time.

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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by DoriC » Mon Dec 10, 2012 11:08 pm

Guest wrote:The pressure changes are wrecking your sleep. THAT'S why you're not feeling rested.
Try setting your machine to CPAP mode and a straight pressure for awhile and see how that goes. (maybe at about 10 cm.)

.
I agree, your wide open pressure range is most likely disturbing your sleep big time and is a recipe for disaster. To remove all the variables for now I would switch to sstraight cpap . A pressure of 10cm can usually handle most apneas at least as a starting place. There's also a good possibility you're mouth breathing which would make any data unreliable. In that case you might want to consider a full face mask. Keep us posted.

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Mozart22
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Re: Brand New User: APAP makes me MORE Tired!!

Post by Mozart22 » Mon Dec 10, 2012 11:37 pm

hyperlexis wrote:You answered your own questions.

1.) Start exercising and lose some of the weight. That will do more good for your health and sleepiness than anything. Good, regular workouts should make you feel more rested and refreshed, not to mention the other health benefits -- but it may take time to adjust.

2.) Go into your clinical settings menu on the machine and turn on the Opti-Start feature. It will adjust your start pressure every 30 hours based on your average need. Keeping your machine at 4/20 is too wide a setting. (And I know because my machine was set at 4/20 by my MD....).

I never had a follow-up titration study and I regret it. I just can't sleep on my back without snoring unless the pressure hits a high level, over 13 or so which sometimes happens with my APAP. So I have to fall asleep on my side, but that sucks because it means the mask hits the pillow which causes leaks or noise or otherwise wakes me up during the night. Sooooooo I too have not had some magical renewal after starting CPAP -- I'm still waking up tired. Why, exactly, I can't say for sure but I think it has something to do with my pressures being too low. So I have turned on Opti-Start with the hope that it will better customize the pressures I need, eventually.....

Hope this helps!

If you're a side sleeper like me, give the Contour CPAP Pillow I try. I got the 5" High Profile version. The pillow is hard as a rock, but I sort of like that.
The cut outs on the side help a lot. The pillow is not great but it does make side sleeping easier.