Newbie Intro

My name is Jeff, I'm 42 and I am just starting my journey. My wife has been telling me for years that I should talk to my doctor about getting tested for OSA, but foolishly I blew off her advice and just thought that I was someone who snores. My dad snores and I have for years, so I assumed this was just normal for me. Before getting diagnosed with severe OSA, I can't remember the last time that I awoke refreshed. I work hard and travel a good deal for my job, so I always just considered this how I was. The straw that broke the camel's back, leading me to seek help, occurred when my snoring got so loud that my wife could not take it anymore, and I was banned to the couch. The stubborn guy in me still did not seek immediate help, but after sleeping on the couch for two months, I finally mentioned to my doctor that I wanted to discuss OSA with him. I don't have elevated BP but due to my wife's account of my loud snoring and gasping for air, he scheduled an appointment for me to see a sleep specialist.

I had to wait a month to get an appointment with the sleep specialist doctor, but after a quick discussion and examination, he told me that it was very likely that I have OSA and that he wanted to schedule an in-lab sleep study to determine the severity. I won't bore you with too many details here, but after fighting with my insurance company when they wanted to do a home study instead, it turned out that I got my in-lab study approved 5 weeks after my initial evaluation. At this point, now that I knew I most likely had OSA, I was getting frustrated and just wanted to hurry the process along so I could start feeling better.

My initial sleep study in the lab was pretty uneventful, other than having to wait over an hour for the person who was scheduled in front of me to get hooked up. I was wondering why they didn't just schedule me to come in an hour later, but that's another story. I typically can fall asleep very easily, but with all these wires and hoses hooked to me, I tossed and turned for about an hour, and I finally gave up and asked for the sleep aid and a second blanket. I was probably asleep within 20 minutes of getting both of those. I remember being woken up in the morning to a voice over the intercom telling me that the study was completed and she'd be coming in to help me get unhooked in a minute. I'm sure the sleep aid had a lot to do with it, but I don't remember waking up at all during the night, even though the technician said she had to come in an adjust a few of the connections during the night. I asked how everything went and if I snored during the night, and she said that I snored VERY loudly. What do you know, my wife and her years of giving me a hard time about my snoring were finally validated. Not that I didn't believe her all these years, but I'm asleep when it happens, so it was still kind of news to me.

They made an appointment for me to visit with the doctor again the next week to review the results of my study. The study showed that I had 2 mixed apneas, 93 obstructive apneas, and 103 hypopneas. My AHI was 33.4 events/hr of sleep. During the course of the study I only had 2 REM periods totaling 68 minutes. The interpretation on my report read: Obstructive sleep apnea, severe, severe in REM, with moderate desaturation and severe snoring. The doctor told me that we needed to schedule a second sleep study to determine the pressure at which my CPAP machine should be configured. The process moved much quicker this time and I was able to get in there two weeks later. The process was almost identical to the first study, including having to wait an hour after I arrived for the person before me to get hooked up. When I was woken up in the morning, I asked the technician how everything went and how many episodes I had during the night, and I was shocked when she told me that they got the CPAP set to a point where I had no incidents. She said that within the next couple of weeks, I would get a call about going to pick up my CPAP from a DME provider.

I called my insurance company that afternoon to make sure that I was clear on everything from their perspective. Luckily, I work for a Canadian company that is heavily committed to health care for their employees, so I have an HRA setup where they fund it with the complete amount of my annual insurance deductible. They said that I would not have to pay anything out of pocket and that my HRA would cover any costs associated with the equipment. Another two weeks passed and I was thrilled to get a call from someone with a company called Apria Health Care, telling me that my CPAP machine had been ordered and that I would be getting a call from someone in their local office the following week to pick up my device. The lady asked me for a credit card number to keep on file to secure my CPAP, but I told her that I never give out my credit card info over the phone, especially to someone who called me and I'd never heard of. After doing some searches following my call, I'm glad that I didn't give her my card number, as it sounds like many people have been defrauded through this practice. I told the lady that I would look into them and if I was comfortable with what I found, I'd give them a credit card number when I was at their office in person.

I received a call from the local Apria office early the next week and scheduled a time to go and get my CPAP last Wednesday. After reading so many complaints about the horrible experience that people on this board and elsewhere had with Apria, I was pretty nervous going into my appointment. I'm happy to report that things could not have gone smoother when I visited the office. I was greeted by a nice older lady who took me back to an office and started giving me an overview of the AirSense 10 AutoSet device that I would be taking home with me. She did a great job of talking through everything that I needed to know and answered all of my questions. She ever put me at ease further by saying that if I had any questions or concerns once I started using the device that I could call her in the office and she'd be happy to help. She also stated, without any prompting from me, that her company has dealt with their fair share of customer service issues, and that they had created a new hotline for ordering supplies that was vastly improved, where someone should answer the phone within a couple of rings. I'll be calling them for the first time later this week, so I'll report back on whether it really goes as smoothly as she described. I admitted that I was very nervous coming in there after all of the negative reviews that I've read, but that she had been great. She reiterated that they have so many offices, that not everyone may get the same experience that I did, but that she had been doing this for a long time, and that she does everything within her power to help her customers.

So, I left the Apria office last Wednesday with a CPAP that was much smaller and more technologically advanced than I had imagined. I had never been more excited about going to bed than I was that day. I stopped by a grocery store on the way home and picked up some distilled water, then went home to get everything set up. I was finally back in bed after months on the couch and I hooked myself up for what I was hoping would be a good night's sleep. It took me at least an hour to finally fall asleep, as this was my first time sleeping with the machine without a sleep aid, as had been used during my sleep studies. I definitely tossed and turned a lot trying to get comfortable, but I slept for about 7 hours. I asked my wife how I did and she happily reported that I didn't snore at all and that she couldn't even hear the CPAP machine as we sleep with a fan and the CPAP was so quiet. I felt really good that morning and made sure that I emptied the water from the humidifier as instructed by the tech at Apria. I was excited to see the results of my night's sleep on Resmed's My Air page, and decided that I'd check it when I got to my office. I unplugged my machine from the wall and went to work, not realizing that I needed to keep in plugged in so that it could upload my stats over the network. I was hoping that when I plugged it back in when I got home from work that the results would then be uploaded, but that didn't happen. Oh well, I learned more my mistake and have not unplugged my device since that time. I've now spent 6 nights on my CPAP and every night I've felt more and more comfortable looking like an elephant (as my 5 year old daughter said) while I sleep.

I really have not felt a huge difference since starting with my CPAP, but I am definitely less tired during the day. I've noticed that I'm not yawning all day like had become the norm for me. I also feel like I'm less jittery, which makes sense being that my body is not being jolted by stopping breathing 33 times per hour anymore. I'm off to a good start and I will without a doubt stick with it. I've only experienced a slight issue with my nasal pillows shifting slightly as I roll from my back to my side. My wife mentioned that last night it must have slipped a little as it sounded like there was a snake hissing in the bedroom until I adjusted it. It's definitely weird having tubes attached to me when I sleep, but the positive benefits that I've seen so far coupled with the upside of a much longer and healthier life, has me very excited about my CPAP, my new best friend!

Sounds like you are doing great! Keep up the good work.

hammertke wrote:My name is Jeff, I'm 42 and I am just starting my journey. My wife has been telling me for years that I should talk to my doctor about getting tested for OSA, but foolishly I blew off her advice and just thought that I was someone who snores. My dad snores and I have for years, so I assumed this was just normal for me.

snoring is bad for your health, and for the health of those around you. tell dad to get it looked at.

Janknitz wrote:Sounds like you are doing great! Keep up the good work.

Thank you! I appreciate it!

palerider wrote:

hammertke wrote:My name is Jeff, I'm 42 and I am just starting my journey. My wife has been telling me for years that I should talk to my doctor about getting tested for OSA, but foolishly I blew off her advice and just thought that I was someone who snores. My dad snores and I have for years, so I assumed this was just normal for me.

snoring is bad for your health, and for the health of those around you. tell dad to get it looked at.

My dad is going to talk to his doctor about it during his next appointment!

It's so good to read your positive experience. I'm very happy for you. I am also a newbie (5 nights) with a new mask today and am hopeful I will have better results with my new mask,

Lisa

lathnos46 wrote:It's so good to read your positive experience. I'm very happy for you. I am also a newbie (5 nights) with a new mask today and am hopeful I will have better results with my new mask,

Lisa

Thanks Lisa! I hope everything goes smoothly with your new mask! We're both going to be feeling huge benefits before you know it!

It sounds like you off to a good start. Some people notice a big difference almost over night. In my case, it did not happen that way. After two months or so, I noticed I could sit and work the morning crossword puzzle and not fall asleep. I was no longer sleeping while watching TV during the day, and I could sit and read without falling asleep. I am feeling better than I have in several years. I just hit one year on my bipap this month.

Your story has a lot of similarities to mine. Sounds like you definitely made the right choice!

Okie bipap wrote:It sounds like you off to a good start. Some people notice a big difference almost over night. In my case, it did not happen that way. After two months or so, I noticed I could sit and work the morning crossword puzzle and not fall asleep. I was not longer sleeping while watching TV during the day, and I could sit and read without falling asleep. I am feeling better than I have in several years. I just hit one year on my bipap this month.

Congrats on hitting the one year mark on your bipap!

audihere wrote:Your story has a lot of similarities to mine. Sounds like you definitely made the right choice!

Thanks! I hope we both have many years of rested sleep with our CPAP's!