3 days on Remstar Auto...so far so good!

[Tired-in-Tenn]

Hi Everybody! Well, I've now used my Remstar Auto for three days now! The first night I was only able to get 5.5 hours of sleep due to going to bed late and having to get on the road early in the morning... I took my usual dose of sleeping meds and then went to bed. I woke up continuously throughout the night...get this, due to dreams! It's been a long time since I've been able to remember having dreams when I slept. Well, I woke up in the morning feeling great. I'm sure this first night was due to placebo effect, as I've got far too much sleep debt to feel any definitive improvements after one night I'd think. Saturday night and Sunday night I took a little more ambien than I have been, and I slept through the entire night...actually 10 hours and 10.5 hours respectively...which isn't uncommon for me to be able to do knocked out on sleeping medications, except normally I'd wake in the morning feeling like a trainwreck...but the past two mornings I'm feeling pretty good! ...no morning headaches and less fatigue! I'm hoping this will only get better as time goes on. So far the mask doesn't bother me to have it on and this thing is so quiet that I don't even notice it running, nor does my wife. The only problem I have had after two days of use is that I've got an open sore on the bridge of my nose from the mask...likely due to having it too tight. Last night I loosened the straps and applied some moleskin to my nose and that seems to have worked until my nose heals up.

So, now I need to ramp myself down off of the sleeping meds I've been taking to get me through the night. I've been taking 5 mg of valium, 5 mg of ambien, and 150 mg of trazadone on each night in order to be able to function the next day. I'm planning to slowly ramp myself down off of these over the next two weeks to hopefully avoid rebound insomnia from coming off of this c$ap. I hate taking this stuff, and I know it messes with various sleep stages, so I'm really looking forward to stopping them and hopefully getting back to sleeping well with just the APAP! Wish me luck!

Tired-in-Tenn

[wading thru the muck!]

T 'n T,

Sounds great, Keep at it and reach for your goals.

[littlebaddow]

Sounds like good progress, Tired-in-Ten, hopefully we can soon call you No Longer....
I certainly wish you luck, but my guess is your positive attitude and perseverence will be enough to see you through the setbacks:!:

[ozij]

Hi there, Tired in Tenn
I noticed you mentioned valium in you medication. I am not a health professional, but decided to post the following anyway, in case it's relevant to you.

About a year ago I had occasion to look into the subject of benzodiazepines – valium is one of them. They are highly addictive though valium itself is one of the better ones. You haven't mentioned how long you've been taking the valium (I don't know about your other drugs) so please, go slow on your ramping down from the medication – benzos have withdrawal symptoms.

My major source was http://www.benzo.org.uk/manual/bzcha00.htm. "Benzodiazepines: How they work and how to withdraw". Take a look.
O.

[Tired-in-Tenn]

Thanks Ozij for posting that link...I'll give it a read tonight. I've been taking valium since around 1996, a few years after my sleep problems started. I've always tried to maintain as low a dosage as possible and have ramped myself down and off of it many times over the years...only to have to go back on it after a few weeks of utter exhaustion from SA related problems...of course, at the time, I didn't know my problems were SA related...

I've only been on ambien and trazodone for sleep for a couple of years now, and have ramped myself off of both of those at various times too...I actually hate having to take this stuff, so have tried to go without it lots of times...only to have the SA related issues cause me to go back on it so that I can function somewhat normally. The SA has started to affect me to the point lately that I have been having to take all three each night to function the next day. Now that I am finally treating the root problem, I'm looking forward to kissing all sleep meds goodbye forever (I hope!!!), or at the very least, only have to use them on a rare basis.

I know there's no way that this APAP can be starting to help me so early on, but I am really feeling much better today than I have been in a long time! I'm going to take advantage of this fact to start back exercising again today, which should help me sleep even better tonight...

Tired-in-Tenn

p.s. littlebaddow, I too hope in a few months I can change my login name to Not-So-Tired-in-Tenn!

[loonlvr]

Did you get the encore software with your machine? Would be interesting to see what your AHI is. Thats a ton of meds. I would think that it would relax you so much that you may have more episodes. Just wondering.

[Tired-in-Tenn]

Hi loonlvr, yeah, it is a lot of c$ap to be taking, I'm hoping to be able to get off of them all within a few months. I did get the software (thank you, you know who!), and the machine seems to be doing a good job of addressing most events, my AHI is staying below 5 so far. I guess if I wanted to be thorough, I could do some testing to see what my true AHI is without treatment while on the meds and then compare it to with treatment on the meds and then again in a few months off of the meds, but as much as I've been starting to feel better being on the APAP, I'm hesitant to back track for a day to do the test...



-Tired-in-Tenn

[loonlvr]

No. i wouldnt do anything. Sounds like your AHI is good. It may go down some when you quit meds. I glad your taking to it so well. I took awhile before I left it on all nite. Now I hardly notice it. One suggestion I got if your hose is getting tangles is to run it up to a headboard, then down . I use a pole lamp.