Daily life with sleep apnea

[silverdahlia]

I'm a 30 year old with life-long sleep apnea who is trying to become tolerant of the CPAP.

Until that happens - I'm 'sleeping' 12 hours a day, only 60% of that time actually asleep, getting a maximum of half an hour of deep sleep a night. If I sleep less in the night/morning, I am foggy, can't fully wake up, and fall asleep for a few hours in the late morning or afternoon. If I sleep 'enough', I'm waking up at 11am or 12pm, then feeling fatigued and tired by 6pm.

Has anyone had this kind of problem? How did you deal with it?

[Drowsy Dancer]

What kind of machine are you using? What kind of mask? Are you using software to monitor your AHI?

How long have you been trying to acclimatize? I would be concerned that your treatment is still suboptimal for some reason if you've been at this for a while and still needing 10-12 hours of sleep per day.

[jaybeem]

Sounds like me. I was three weeks into faithfully using CPAP. My numbers looked great, but I also was "sleeping" 11 hours whenever I could. I don't think I was getting much, if any, REM sleep. In my case the problem was severe dry eyes--bad enough to keep awakening me every two hours--which I eventually had diagnosed by a second opinion ophthalmologist and solved. I have finally had three night of good quality sleep, and it feels like a miracle.

If you haven't already, get the software to look at the data from the SmartCard on your CPAP machine. Maybe leaks are sub-awakening you before you can get into REM. Maybe your pressures aren't right, and you are still having enough events to interfere with good quality sleep.

Just don't give up. See your sleep doctor or at least your primary care physician to find a solution.

Hang in there!