I find this ridiculous, but I am a NOOB

[BearVet]

I first want to thank everybody who gave me help with my last question, I am now just using a two-hose dry mask, no cosy
No humidifier, and I am getting around 6 to 8 hrs. In a polyphasic sleep cycle. Now for the question I am having difficulty in resolving.
I am wondering, does it ever get "easier" to get ready to turn in ?
I will try to be specific, and the group will hopefully share with me the wisdom you've worked so hard to have.
I am up to 12 separate steps, to just climb into bed !
I have to shower, shave (for the mask fit), rinse (Netti-pot) then brush teeth, then medicate with nasal spray, dole out pain meds, take them, put the water beside the bed, assemble the hose, assemble the mask, put it on and adjust, then try to lay down and relax...and maybe fall asleep.
Am I forgetting anything ? Am I doing something I shouldn't be doing ?
Honestly, the amount of bu*****t is enough to send me over the edge. I just hope the sleep is "worth" it.
(Rant Over)
Thank you all for your help.

[SMenasco]

Did you forget to pee?

[chunkyfrog]

OK, You could try this:
--Empty pockets, plug in phone, change clothes, take insulin shot, take evening meds, remove hearing aid and earrings,
turn on hearing aid dryer, turn down lights, put in eyedrops, with 3 minute lachrymal block, check water level in humidifier,
fill if needed. Wipe cushion down with baby wipe, do same to face, don mask, lie down, (machine is on auto on), put on Zeo,
(if I feel like it), turn off light. This doesn't count everything that happens in the bathroom earlier:
("throne time", wash, brush and scrub whatever needs it)
Please note how little time the machine takes, relative to everything else.
In return for this tiny effort, my sleep is a thousand percent better!

[hbananas]

That all sounds about right. Hubby gives his teeth a quick brush and he's out. He is also very non-compliant with his CPAP therapy. I have to wash and do the skin care regime, brush and floss, take meds, put fresh distilled water in the tank, assemble the mask and put it on, and it's a half hour if I'm lucky. The only added part is the putting on of the mask and the filling of the humidifier. Everything else is just part of being a woman and a person who has put her dentist's kids through college.

[mgaggie]

I don't even think about what I do before bed, I just do it automatically. IMHO if you overthink it, you'll just stress out. Why not do some of the steps earlier in the night? When I wander into my bedroom at night all I do is top up the water in my humidifer, slap on the mask and turn on machine.

If you make a song and dance, it'll turn into an opera

[Julie]

One thing - why are you assembling (and presumably then disassembling) your mask and hose every time? My hose stays plugged into the machine and mask 24/7 and all straps are hooked up except for the lower right clip. All I do is climb into bed, lie down and pull the headgear on, clipping that one closed once mask is arranged. I use wipes to clean the inside the mask, and the cushion a couple of times a week (there's actually very little to clean because it's all such a straight system of just air passing thru), and I'm asleep. The hose quite honestly never needs 'cleaning' - just doesn't get dirty or even dusty. And I never, ever get sick. I change the filter only once in a very long while, though rinse it out on occasion.

[kaiasgram]

I first want to thank everybody who gave me help with my last question, I am now just using a two-hose dry mask, no cosy
No humidifier, and I am getting around 6 to 8 hrs. In a polyphasic sleep cycle. Now for the question I am having difficulty in resolving.
I am wondering, does it ever get "easier" to get ready to turn in ?
I will try to be specific, and the group will hopefully share with me the wisdom you've worked so hard to have.
I am up to 12 separate steps, to just climb into bed !
I have to shower, shave (for the mask fit), rinse (Netti-pot) then brush teeth, then medicate with nasal spray, dole out pain meds, take them, put the water beside the bed, assemble the hose, assemble the mask, put it on and adjust, then try to lay down and relax...and maybe fall asleep.
Am I forgetting anything ? Am I doing something I shouldn't be doing ?
Honestly, the amount of bu*****t is enough to send me over the edge. I just hope the sleep is "worth" it.
(Rant Over)
Thank you all for your help.

BearVet, this kinda made me laugh a little because I can relate -- I've got a bunch of new little subroutines too since starting cpap. It used to be brush, floss, and drop! Now it's Netti-pot, preparing my little mouth-tape thing, brushing, flossing, night guard, warm up microwave heat pad (back pain at night since I got on PAP, sheesh), and the list goes on. Oh yes, the p.m. meds -- I finally broke down and bought not one but two "day of the week" pill containers. A.M. and P.M. god I feel old. But it does save a little bit of time to dole them out once a week so at bedtime I can just open "Friday" or whatever and pop the pills.

You'll probably find a rhythm with all the prep that eventually shortens the amount of time involved. That has happened for me -- it just doesn't take quite as long as it used to because I do it on autopilot now AND over time I got less fussy about how I did everything. Some nights if my nose feels clear enough I skip the Netti-pot, little shortcuts when I can. Whatever stuff you can do earlier in the day (like assembling your mask, doling out meds, filling water tank, etc.) do that, and see if you can whittle down to only the stuff you really have to wait for bedtime to do.

Hang in there!

[robysue]

I am wondering, does it ever get "easier" to get ready to turn in ?
I will try to be specific, and the group will hopefully share with me the wisdom you've worked so hard to have.
I am up to 12 separate steps, to just climb into bed !

Sounds like me at the beginning: the very process of "getting ready for bed" at the beginning was like a shot of fully caffeinated expresso right at bedtime.

In some ways it does get better. In some ways it doesn't. As a newbie, I had a bedtime regime similar to yours and it left me wide awake uncomfortably fighting for sleep for very long periods of time while feeling the aerophagia starting to grow. Not good.

I eventually learned to do some things earlier in the evening and to not care so much about other things as much. I also learned (through sheer repetition) how to do a bunch of the things without much thought over time, and hence they don't "wake me up" so much any more.

Let's look at your list:

I have to shower, shave (for the mask fit), rinse (Netti-pot) then brush teeth, then medicate with nasal spray, dole out pain meds, take them, put the water beside the bed, assemble the hose, assemble the mask, put it on and adjust, then try to lay down and relax...and maybe fall asleep.
Am I forgetting anything ? Am I doing something I shouldn't be doing ?

Here's a list of things that can be done much earlier than bedtime, which then allows bedtime to be less complicated and more relaxing:

Neti-pot and nasal spray. Do it an hour or two before bed. For me, doing the neti-pot right before bed both wakes me up (all that snorting and blowing and dripping) and it allows the water to drain more completely, which in turn makes me more comfortable when I do lie down---there's no more drippy nose causing me to need to take the mask off and wipe. (It takes my nose a long time to drain.)

Assemble the hose, assemble the mask, and put the water beside the bed. Unless you've got rambunctious pets or kids with full access to your bedroom, assemble the hose and mask well before bedtime and then forget about it for the rest of the evening. As a newbie, I used to do it right after supper. And then lock the cat out of the room. The mere act of having to put the equipment together was enough to wake me up. I still prefer to NOT have to do it right before I go to bed, but now I can do without too much thought and it no longer acts like a shot of expresso ...

Depending on how complicated you are finding the mask fit process, you might even want to prefit the mask when you're putting the machine together right after supper. That way you might be able to do a quick final fit when actually do go to bed.

I'm female, so shaving wasn't an issue . But I do remember washing the face every night, and with my very dry skin and my "no makeup" habits, washing my face every single night was NOT something I had done for years and years and years. I thought it was mandatory in order to get a good mask fit. But eventually the facial skin's desire to NOT be washed so often and laziness won out. And I discovered that "mask fit with an unwashed face" turned out to NOT be a problem. (Folks with oily skin might have much more difficulty with fitting a mask on an unwashed face; but folks with oily skin are also much more likely to already be washing their face every single night anyway.) My guess is that some night you're just going to be too sick and tired of shaving and you'll decide to just mask up with the daily stubble. And depending on how heavy your beard stubble is, you might just be fine as far as mask leaks go. If not, it may be easier to deal with a mask liner instead of the shaving.

[kteague]

As time passes most of this stuff becomes second nature. I do try to move everything possible to a while before bedtime so when I get sleepy enough to go to bed I don't get all wide away doing a lot. When I used the netipot I had to do it at least an hour before bedtime or I'd be all runny nosed when time to mask up. When I'm feeling irked about every little thing (and I can easily get that way) sometimes it helps to do a reality check. If I look at the actual time it takes to do a task, I'm usually embarrassed that I let it bother me. For instance, one sleepy night when I went to brush my teeth before falling into bed, in my mind I grumbled,"Ugh. I have to take my toothbrush out of the medicine cabinet, get the toothpaste out of the drawer, and brush my teeth." Then had to laugh at myself. It took maybe 2 seconds to grab the toothbrush, another 3-4 seconds to get the toothpaste, and less than 30 seconds to brush my teeth with a battery powered spin brush. lol But everything is an aggravation when you're sleepy. Hope things settle down for you soon.

[RogerSC]

Yeah, I spread this stuff out, too. Brush and floss when I'm done eating for the day, usually while I'm reading or watching TV. And then take care of the mask and humidifier tank after that (still well before bedtime). Don't shower at night, doesn't work for me, shower in the morning *smile*. Don't shave, have a beard. What happens if you don't shave at night? If you get an unacceptable level of leaks, maybe you should look for a mask that will be more tolerant of a day's beard growth? If you can get what you do just before bed down to a minimum, it'll really help your state of mind by the time you get to bed, which of course, will help your sleeping.

I agree that if I had this pile of tasks to do at bedtime, it would drive me up the wall. So, I think that I'd see if I couldn't get my bedtime routine down to the essentials by spreading most of this stuff out in the evening and morning.

[hueyville]

I shower and shave when get in from work while wife gets dinner on table. I brush my teeth after dinner thus my hygene is done long before sleep time. I break my machine down every Sunday after church; wash hose, mask, resivore, rinse foam filter, etc and let all dry. Long before bed time I put it back together, fill humidifier and weekly service is done. Rest of week I top off humidifier when get out of shower and wipe off mask. 30 minutes every Sunday and 5 minutes max the other 6 nights to keep machine tip top shape. Wife and I take 30 minutes before sleep time to read together then off to bed. I take an ambian, put on mask, machine starts with 10 minute ramp time and I am asleep before it hits full pressure 99% of the time. What happens after ambian wears off can be a mixed bag but with help of new sleep doc we are working on stabilizing entire night hopefully. My 1st 4 to 5 hours is pretty nice. Nights that later start going down hill wife moves to other bedroom and if i dont fall back to sleep soon I take a diazapam and rest will come. Know the muscle relaxant can make O.A. worse but since mine seems to be mostly central the diazapam gives me those last couple of hours and wake up feeling decent most days. Also have to take pain meds for the broken c2 in neck, t10 thoracic spine and L4/L5/S1 lumbar spine but hope to be addressing those soon. All that because somebody just had to send a text message while driving and did not see the red light i was patiently waiting to turn green. The head and neck injury has apparently made my apnea worse so spine doc wants sleep doc to get apnea better onfrolled before he cuts my neck open to fuse the c2. Without the car wreck they might still be trying to treat obstructive instead of central so there is my silver lining on the dark cloud.

[idamtnboy]

I guess I'm relatively fortunate. Brush teeth after supper. At bedtime, or a little earlier, add water to humidifier (every other night). Then when going to bed, pop two pills, wash around mouth, slap on tape, drop in bed, turn on machine, put on mask, and zonk out.

[idamtnboy]

I finally broke down and bought not one but two "day of the week" pill containers. A.M. and P.M. god I feel old. But it does save a little bit of time to dole them out once a week so at bedtime I can just open "Friday" or whatever and pop the pills.

This is getting little bit off the subject, but I use envelopes for my pills. Ten plus years ago when I started on pills, a diabetes clinical trial, I had only one per day. After about the 10th time of dumping all the pills out of the bottle and counting them to figure out if I had already taken the daily pill, about 15 minutes earlier no less, I knew I had to do something, so I went to the computer. I now take 13 pills a day, distributed among morning, evening, and bedtime.

I use a spreadsheet to generate a list of 30 days. I then have three address label documents, one for each of the three times, set up for merge printing. I print 30 days of labels, 90 in all. I then put these on coin envelopes which I then put the corresponding pills in. The 90 envelopes are put in order onto a spindle. One advantage of doing this is I can instantly tell by looking at the stack of envelopes if I have forgotten to take a particular dose. The total process from generating the date list to putting pills in envelopes and on the spindle takes one to two hours, but I do it only once every thirty days.

If anyone is interested I can take pics of the whole process the next time I do them and post them in a new topic.

For the younger folks who may have missed seeing some of the office methods of 40+ years ago, a spindle is a sharp stiff wire mounted vertically on a base onto which you stab notes, invoices, bills, etc. Years ago every office had them, some by the dozens.

[StuUnderPressure]

If anyone is interested I can take pics of the whole process the next time I do them and post them in a new topic.

Yes, pictures please !

[John from Brookston]

Evening pills (all 6 of them), pee, scoop the cat box, (wash hands) brush teeth, wash face, unload pockets, put phone on charge, get naked, sit on bed, fill humidifier tank, wipe out inside of pillows with wipe, turn machine on, mask up, lay down, adjust mask, wait for cat to jump up and snuggle (he finally got used to the blower) roll over, turn out light, cat lays head on arm, next stop alarm clock screams...
There's only 5 extra steps in there since I started PAP, but in the beginning they drove me nuts, too.