Newbie Struggling

[joeack1]

Hello, I have been following along this board since starting w/CPAP back in Mid November of 2019, which has been very helpful and educational and now I'm hoping to get some suggestions. I had a very difficult time trying to adjust to CPAP over the first month, a lot of feelings of panic and claustrophobia needing to rip mask off w/in minutes of starting therapy. Have been trying to stay the course from reading lots of posts, have also been working w/my respiratory company and have made adjustments to settings. I am also diagnosed w/Insomnia and take 100mg trazodone at night. Long/short after taking a lot of time and trying to desensitize to the CPAP machine before feeling like given up, things began to take a turn for the better. The panic/claustrophobic feelings for most part went away and I was getting really good usage w/the machine and longer periods of uniterupted sleep and then feeling great during the days. My question is it normal to go backwards again? Past several nights has been a challenge, no issue falling asleep w/the CPAP, trazodone helps there, but when I wake up in the night usually I'm finding it incredibly hard to fall back to sleep wearing the mask, feels very stressful at those times. I know I'm focusing on my breath during these periods and at times feeling like I'm trying to sync my breath to the cpap machine vs. not focusing on breath and not sure if this is the rabbit hole (trying to sync my breath to pace of machine) that then things can spiral out of control for me and need to rip mask off and then usually up for a period of time trying to settle/calm. On the flip side I can wake up in the middle of night and typically fall back to sleep pretty easily if not wearing the mask, but obvioulsy not the goal. The past few nights I have given up the ghost in the middle of the night to just trying and get some sleep before work. Hoping I'm making sense, but looking if others have had this experience, especially that of things going well w/CPAP, but then suddenly for unkown reason become a challenge again. Any thoughts appreciated as I am trying my best to make this successful as the benefits are so great.

[gv280z]

Wow, well it sounds like most of the hard work you've already done, I think you're pretty much there. Having good and bad nights is normal and you just try to keep at it (that is until you and your machine become best buds anyway) Your main issue getting back to sleep sounds like just needing to try and relax and understand that the machine responds to you. Try using your ramp feature, and know that you can set it for different lengths of time to give you time to get to sleep before the pressure increases. Put on the mask, lie down in bed and start pressure, work on taking long slow breaths, in and out, to teach your brain that you are in control and it's ok.

My initial couple of weeks did consist of some panicky-ness, and waking up finding the mask, hose and headgear disassembled and resting in my hands. Don't really know if it helped or not but I definitely remember putting on my mask and just laying there in bed for a good minute or two before hooking up the hose and starting pressure, just to give my heart time to slow down and get my breathing under control. I finally got over that, and then pretty much from then on, bad nights were relegated to stopping leaky masks, and finding the right adjustments for the straps.

I turn 3 this spring and really do love my machine and mask, and there is NO ONE within my circle, immediate or expanded, that doesn't know how I feel about this topic and how scary the Sleep Apnea monster is and the effect it can have on one's life. I am not shy or embarrased to talk to total strangers, or customers on a job site about this.