Hello. It didn't happen right away, but eventually, I found that I was sleeping both longer and more deeply than I had in quite a while. (I suspect I was suffering with apnea for several years before diagnosis.) I'd estimate it took me two to three months to get to that point. YMMV Good luck, and le...

I'm a couple of years in, and it still happens occasionally. I'll wake up, and the mask will be lying neatly on top of the machine, and on top of it, the wrist splint that I wear at night for carpal tunnel syndrome. Note that this is how I would typically place the mask and the splint when I get up ...

Some people adapt really quickly to CPAP. The rest of us, not so much. I can so relate to your feelings in this first week of treatment. When we first think about needing to do something "forever" -- like CPAP or daily insulin injections or whatever -- it can be a little daunting. Forever is such a ...

Is it always noisy, or just some of the time? I ask because early on, I often heard a whooshing sound that turned out to be an inadvertent blocking of the vent on my mask through which air is expelled. Anything close enough to the vent to interfere with the outflowing of air -- a blanket, my arm, a ...

Fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis (severe in knee, moderate in neck and shoulders). I do think that by improving the quality of my sleep, CPAP has helped me deal with the fibro some. It's not that CPAP reduces the pain per se but that getting more and better sleep make it easier to cope with discomfor...

Thank you! The discussion in the second article you posted about the interrelationship between and among fibromyalgia, apnea, and menopause is one of the clearest and most straightforward I've ever read. (Not that the relationships themselves are particularly clear or straightforward ...)

When I saw the Sleep Dr after the first study he told me that I had between 16-30 events per hour, but that they don't seem to rousing me from REM sleep much even though my oxygen was dropping. He also said that there is no difference in whether I sleep on my side or on my back. The events happen e...

Either way, I'm going to try and get a new machine and also going to see a cardiologist. Glad to hear this. If you fight for the machine you want, you may or may not win. But if you don't fight, then you certainly won't win. As for seeing a cardiologist, you win any way you look at it. Best case: y...

Hi, Nathan. While the idea of a nocturnal panic attack is plausible, I think it's worth talking with a cardiologist about this. If you do a "search" on the forum you'll find at least one other thread -- and I suspect more! -- in which various kinds of heartbeat abnormalities are linked to apnea. I m...

The longest I have gone with continuous use is a week or two...admittedly not very long but I keep hearing these stories about how much better everyone feels almost immediately About those stories ... There are as many stories as there are folks undergoing treatment. Some people do adjust amazingly...

Well, they would have to catch me first ... Years ago, I wore one of those suckers for six months, day and night, while recovering from a slipped cervical disk. I swear I never slept comfortably with it. When I first got my CPAP gear and had to pep-talk myself nightly to mask up, I would say to myse...

Hello and welcome! You sound very motivated, so even if your initial experiences are less than you had hoped for, you will be successful in adapting to CPAP. (And you might be one of the many who adjust pretty quickly and easily.) I know what you mean about all the information being overwhelming. Sm...

I suffered from occasional bouts of supraventricular tachycardia (SVTs) for 15+ years before my OSA diagnosis. At an annual check-up with my cardiologist, I mentioned that my general practitioner wanted me to get a sleep study done. He said it wouldn't hurt to do it, but was curious about what sympt...

Even with the several gajillion words strewn over and about the Internet, I would bet good money that one cannot elsewhere find these words: "Oh thank goodness I have gastroenteritis!"

Feel better soon!

I hope you come back, WriterGirl, to read all the empathetic and encouraging responses. Scared, discouraged, severely anxious ... Many of us had similar feelings when we first got the news and began contemplating CPAP therapy. Some of us took to CPAP like the proverbial duck to water; some of us -- ...