Three months and still not having much success

[frustratednewuser]

Thanks, Oak. It helps a lot to have helpful information and positive feedback from here.

[Pugsy]

You know what's weird....We can wear the mask for 6 hours and do well...then wake up and take it off and go back to sleep for an hour or two and when we wake up we can feel like total crap even though the bulk of the night our OSA was well treated.
The body tends to remember the last couple of hours without the mask and not remember the 6 hours with the mask.

[frustratednewuser]

I can attest to that, Pugsy!

[Shore Snorer]

You know what's weird....We can wear the mask for 6 hours and do well...then wake up and take it off and go back to sleep for an hour or two and when we wake up we can feel like total crap even though the bulk of the night our OSA was well treated.
The body tends to remember the last couple of hours without the mask and not remember the 6 hours with the mask.

That certainly seems to be the case. At least it's something I've seen several times, here and in other forums.

But ... how? What on earth could be the mechanism for "6 good hours of sleep plus 1 bad hour of sleep" being worse than "6 good hours of sleep"?

[mollete]

Sleep inertia is a transitional state of lowered arousal occurring immediately after awakening from sleep and producing a temporary decrement in subsequent performance. Many factors are involved in the characteristics of sleep inertia. The duration of prior sleep can influence the severity of subsequent sleep inertia. Although most studies have focused on sleep inertia after short naps, its effects can be shown after a normal 8-h sleep period. One of the most critical factors is the sleep stage prior to awakening. Abrupt awakening during a slow wave sleep (SWS) episode produces more sleep inertia than awakening in stage 1 or 2, REM sleep being intermediate. Therefore, prior sleep deprivation usually enhances sleep inertia since it increases SWS. There is no direct evidence that sleep inertia exhibits a circadian rhythm. However, it seems that sleep inertia is more intense when awakening occurs near the trough of the core body temperature as compared to its circadian peak. A more controversial issue concerns the time course of sleep inertia. Depending on the studies, it can last from 1 min to 4 h. However, in the absence of major sleep deprivation, the duration of sleep inertia rarely exceeds 30 min. But all these results should be analysed as a function of type of task and dependent variables. Different cognitive functions are probably not sensitive to the same degree to sleep inertia and special attention should be provided to dependent variables as a result of the cognitive processes under review. Finally, sleep disorders represent risk factors which deserve new insight in treatment strategies to counteract the adverse effects of sleep inertia.

[Pugsy]

But ... how? What on earth could be the mechanism for "6 good hours of sleep plus 1 bad hour of sleep" being worse than "6 good hours of sleep"?

In terms of physical effects on the body...obviously it isn't worse to have 6 hours of good sleep with the machine and 1 hour without it.
That's why we tell people who are having trouble sleeping all night with the mask and machine that some treatment is better than no treatment. Better to have all the bad stuff that goes on when not sleeping with the machine for 1 hour instead of 7 hours. It's not ideal of course but some therapy is better than no therapy.

That 1 hour of bad sleep without the mask doesn't totally negate the 6 hours of good sleep but the body tends to "remember" the effects of the 1 hour of bad sleep and totally forgets the 6 hours. This is a subjective thing and not what actually happens.
I look at it as if the body is saying "hey...yo dude....you know you would feel better if you didn't sleep that last hour without the machine then I wouldn't have to remind you how bad it is for you to do without the machine".

[frustratednewuser]

Well, whatever it's called and however it happens, it just happened to me again. I tossed and turned most of the night, but kept the mask on all night. I then checked the read out and the machine says that I only got 3.2 hours of therapy, which again is incorrect. I've not yet taken the card out to check to see if that's correct. In any event, I was exhausted when I finally decided enough was enough and after taking off the mask and before I had a chance to get out of bed I fell asleep and slept for a few hours without the mask. I now feel as if I had no sleep at all last night.