Newbie With (Mostly) Success

[pillarpaul]

Hi - I've "lurked" for a while as I wanted to wait until I finally did something about my apnea. Started 10 days ago and have felt infinitely better. I'm convinced I've had apnea for 20 years but calling it fatigue probably didn't help me get it diagnosed correctly. Took a very ironic check of a search engine to see where our company came up (Pillar Property Services, thus my "pillarpaul" tag) and I found the "Pillar Procedure". Curiosity got me to check that which led me to several sleep apnea sites which included this excellent one. The procedure sounds intriguing but thought I'd try c-pap first.

Very long story very short: Started using a Respironics REMStar C-Flex with a Breeze Nasal Pillow and I noticed a huge difference. I don't like that I wake up 6-9 times a night but reading threads here about that have made me feel better about understanding adjustments and as someone wrote that's sure better than the 15 times per hour I used to wake up (and not know it, of course).

I appreciate the self-deprecating humor of the forums, like vanity making most of us that use nasal pillows guess "small" for the size when in reality most seem to need large I do seem to be getting redness each morning around the outside of my nostril and my upper lip bridge. I assume that can be corrected with adjustments.

Anyways, looking forward to asking more specific questions as I go along.

Paul

[AdmiralCougar]

I'm new myself, but getting the hang of the whole thing a bit at a time. As you can tell there's lots of great helpful information here, and the members are awesome. Ask any questions you have and someone here should have an answer for you, maybe even me...

[bdp522]

Welcome to the forum Paul. For the sore nares try Ayr Gel. You can get it at most drug stores and super markets. Use it at night and the soreness will be decreased or gone all together. It takes time for the nares to toughen up. Do be sure that the mask isn't too tight.

Brenda