Skeptic - what will happen if I modify my pressures?

[Starlette]

I can't respond to your situation. However, I noticed by your posts you're new to the forum. As you have already experienced, there are lots of folks that are willing to assist you in your quest towards sleep nirvana. Welcome to the forum. Post and read. While you're reading, may I offer you some freshly made cookies and a tall glass of milk.

Starlette

[Pugsy]

I guess I'm just in denial on whether or not I need to be a hose head for the foreseeable future.

Ahhh, you don't feel the "miracle" that you read about so OSA is probably not the problem and you don't need the machine??? Right? Tis common way of thinking. Let's face it....we really don't want to sleep with this stuff attached to our faces for the rest of our lives, do we? It just isn't natural is it?
You know I totally understand where you are coming from but let me assure you that even if you don't achieve the miracle that you read about (by the way the miracles are really rather rare) the time spent on the machine is doing things to improvement your health behind the scenes that you can't see or immediately perceive.

Even when someone sleeps through the night and doesn't have their sleep interrupted with mask leaks and fit and discomfort issues...it most often takes some time for the person to see and feel the improvements. Sometimes the improvements are very gradual and barely seen or felt.

Until you resolve the frequent awakenings because of mask issues you can't really even begin to expect to see much improvement in how you feel. Even if you didn't have OSA and you had a truckload of awakenings you would feel like crap. Fragmented sleep for whatever reason just totally messes up the sleep architecture and doesn't let the body get the nice normal stages of sleep that the body needs to utilize the restorative powers of sleep.
So you need normal hours of sleep (not 4 to 5) that is minimally interrupted to have the best chance to see the improvements that you feel you need to see for validation that the therapy is working.

I didn't see the miracle straight away either. In fact it took me many, many months to see the miracle despite having great report numbers. I saw some improvements but I didn't wake up feeling like a new person ready to run a marathon. You know what? I probably will never feel like running a marathon and wouldn't even if I didn't have OSA but I sure expected to because I read that other people did. It took me 2 weeks to get my therapy pressures dialed in so that I had decent reports and was sleeping 4 hours on the machine without waking up. Once I did that the killer morning headaches from oxygen starvation reduced dramatically and along with the reduction in the killer headaches my frequent hourly trips through the night to go pee went away. Those were the 2 main symptoms that I saw evidence that my therapy was working. That energy level thing...it was much, much slower to materialize.

You have to give yourself time to adjust to all this.....get the mask fit and leak issues under control...start sleeping at least 6 hours or more without frequent wake ups to even have a chance at feeling the results you want to feel.

[MaxDarkside]

I have been using a Quattro Fx mask for a year. Tho I have replaced the cushion/seal, silly me didn't get a new mask for that entire time, which means my head gear was very stretched. I just got a new mask (mask, seal, head gear) and last night I used it for the first time. I find the new one a bit "leakier" than the old one, probably because the headgear is "factory sized" again. My conclusions: 1) I should replace the head gear more often than annually (most here would say "duh!") and 2) there may be a period of time for the mask / headgear to "break in" and fit better. You are on a relatively new mask/head-gear. You may find it will get better, with some adjustment of the velcro straps now and then.

Next, if your sleep study showed > 5 AHI and you are running around 1-2 AHI, I would suggest not second guessing your treatment. Stick with it. Give yourself time to make adjustments, whether that is with the mask/head-gear, bed pillows, etc.

I did do an experiment the other night. I didn't use my machine for 1 night because of situations around the house (wife not well, didn't want to disturb her sleeping, I slept in the guest bedroom) and I noticed the next day I had a low grade gravelly headache all day.

[chunkyfrog]

If I go without (power outage), I feel like I lost a head-butting fight with a billy goat.

[meissen]

Well - hopefully when the pad-a-cheek stop leak comes in it will stop the leaks that I've had.It's just frustrating how tired I am from not getting a good night's sleep.