How long to adjust?

I've been doing cpap for a week now and it's been a really bad experience. I had pretty bad sleep apnea but I never really felt terribly affected (tired, headaches, other symptoms). So far the first night I barely slept, maybe 15 minutes. I've been sleeping more since then but I still haven't had a full night of sleep. I keep waking up with a really dry mouth, I turn up the humdity one setting every night and it feels like water is forming on my mustache but I still have the dry mouth. Every night I wake up in the middle of the night and the pressure just feels oppressive. There's no way to get back to sleep with it running. The only time I had a full 8 hours of sleep was a night when I woke up and took it off and didn't realize it until the morning.

I definitely have pretty bad sleep apnea so I want this to work for me but I'm wondering if there is light at the end of tunnel, how long does it take on average to adjust to it? I heard stories about people who wore it for 1 day and it changed their life the next day and my experience hasn't been like that, I didn't have any symptoms before and now my only symptom is I'm more tired because I'm not getting a full night of sleep.

turn the machine off and back on again and it will start at you min pressure.
You will get use to the pressure and it won't be long before you are waking up wondering if the machine is still working, because you can't feel anything.
The dry mouth is from mouth breathing, a search will show a multitude of things that may or may not work for you.
You can put up some sleepyhead charts for opinions

there is only one rule, always have the mask on when you lay down and sit up to take it off, so you can't go back to sleep without it. It sounds bad but it works quicker to get use to it this way. It can take a month before you sleep through.

Have to admit that I used Ambien for the first week to get going sleeping using cpap. The first night, couldn't get to sleep with the cpap and all the gear, so I called my doctor in the morning and got a prescription for Ambien. Took it for a week, that was long enough to get my body used to sleeping with the cpap. Stopped using the Ambien, and found that I was able to sleep at that point with cpap. Don't know if that would help you, just thought I'd mention it in case it might...Doesn't address the humidity problem, though.

Dry mouth can be due several causes, like using a nasal or nasal pillow mask, and breathing through your mouth instead of your mask. You don't mention what mask you're using. If you're using a full face mask, you can turn up the humidity on most cpap's, assuming you have a humidifier...again, to give you helpful advice it is necessary to know what sort of cpap equipment (machine, mask, etc.) that you're using.

Name and model of your machine? Type of mask? Pressure settings? Are you a mouth breather? Are you using the ramp?

LSAT wrote:Name and model of your machine? Type of mask? Pressure settings? Are you a mouth breather? Are you using the ramp?

Right, BHC, you need to fill out your equipment profile - https://www.cpaptalk.com/ucp.php?i=prof ... pment_info

Then, let's get into a longer discussion about your CPAP therapy. This is about the only way to help you get it optimized.

BHC1212 wrote:I didn't have any symptoms before

Just an aside, how did you end up with a CPAP if you have no symptoms?

The adjustment starts just after you decide to really make XPAP work at any cost! (In effort) Then is all that's needed is learning how XPAP works and the hard part Masks that you need. In 12 years i've used 4 different masks, I made all four work for me, I only missed 4 nights (power loss). Jim

ChicagoGranny wrote:

BHC1212 wrote:I didn't have any symptoms before

Just an aside, how did you end up with a CPAP if you have no symptoms?

People told me I was gasping for air in my sleep. I guess that's a symptom, I meant the ones like "tired, headaches, etc".

It took me a few weeks of playing with temp and humidity setting and ramp times to find settings that were right for me before I was sleeping easily with the cpap. Don't give up.

My first 4 nights were hellish. I only slept during my 45 minute ramp and my exhaustion, that I thought could not get worse, did just that. Then, boom, night 5 slept 9 hrs without waking and pretty stayed at 9 hrs with few if any wakeups for the next few months, then to 8 hrs. After a few more days of sleep, I turned ramp down to 10 minutes, then a few weeks later to 5, and then after another few weeks turned it off.