First week nightmare.

[Gcfcos]

Well nearly completed my first week on cpap and it's been one big disappointing nightmare haven't managed more than 2.5 to 3.5 hours sleep maximum per night, I'm absolutely shattered tired to the point I feel like I have the flu. I started cpap Monday. The worst thing that's happening is as soon as I feel myself dropping off to sleep I seem to stop breathing and after about 5 seconds I have a massive gasp for air and have to take the mask off quick. This is happening every 45 minutes or so and after a few hours of it I can't take any more. The mask does feel perhaps a little small and is pushing on on my synasses and it's a medium I believe as it has M on the sides. Anyone experienced anything similar? Plus it says on my report that my "events" per hour are worse than when I started the treatment! I'm so so tired I'm going to have to sleep tonight without it and possibly call the sleep clinic Monday for advice.

[OkyDoky]

I looked and didn't see where you were given your Clinical manual yet so here it is. https://sleep.tnet.com/home/files/resme ... -guide.pdf
Now if you haven't downloaded Sleepyhead yet I think this would be a good time to take a look at your data to see if there are clues there. Here is a link to tell you how to download. https://sleep.tnet.com/resources/sleepyhead
After you have downloaded Sleepyhead and have some data here is how to share it on the forum. https://sleep.tnet.com/resources/sleepyhead/shorganize There are 3 pages showing you how to organize your graphs, take a screenshot, and post it using Imgur, so at the bottom of each page click to go to the next one. The number of events may or may not be relevant until you have less restless sleep. Also sometimes the Sleep Study results may not have been your typical sleep so that's why it is good to look at the trends with some solid sleep.
As far as your sinuses what humidifier setting are you using? Do you have the Climateline hose and is it on auto? Mine works well most of the time on auto but this winter I've had to turn up to maximum. It may be that you need to play with the humidifier setting. Some people like none and some maximum. It's very individual. I have also heard others talk about pressure on the nose causing congestion so I will let ones who experienced this to give suggestions there.

[Gcfcos]

Thank you for your reply. I'll have to fire up our old laptop and try and download it on there on Windows. We only
Tend to use our iPads and iPhones these days lol. It's more the pressure of the mask pressing down on my face that's causing the problem, I have to tighten it quite a bit to get it to stop leaking.

[BlackSpinner]

Thank you for your reply. I'll have to fire up our old laptop and try and download it on there on Windows. We only
Tend to use our iPads and iPhones these days lol. It's more the pressure of the mask pressing down on my face that's causing the problem, I have to tighten it quite a bit to get it to stop leaking.

No a FFM should float like a hovercraft. Let it inflate under full pressure before adjusting it.
Try making a liner (gasket) out of an old tshirt- for many people that makes all the difference in the world.

[Mudrock63]

What are your pressure settings? I lot of people get the standard 4-20 range. And the 4 is so low it makes them feel like they are suffocating. I started at 6.0 fixed and could barely feel it. And it did little to help me.

[OkyDoky]

What are your pressure settings? I lot of people get the standard 4-20 range. And the 4 is so low it makes them feel like they are suffocating. I started at 6.0 fixed and could barely feel it. And it did little to help me.

He has an Elite machine which is fixed CPAP but I didn't see where he mentioned settings in any of his posts.

[Gcfcos]

According to the the display on the machine it starts at 4
And then what seems like half hour later? It goes to 10. Breathing out hot air into the mask feels really horrible and I have to take the bed covers off me that makes me feel that hot! There is an on screen menu where u can adjust the ramp whatever that is. I've had to turn the pipe temperature down to 18 as was making me overheat on auto setting. Thanks guys

[palerider]

According to the the display on the machine it starts at 4
And then what seems like half hour later? It goes to 10. Breathing out hot air into the mask feels really horrible and I have to take the bed covers off me that makes me feel that hot! There is an on screen menu where u can adjust the ramp whatever that is. I've had to turn the pipe temperature down to 18 as was making me overheat on auto setting. Thanks guys

do you have an elite?

ramp is a feature that some people like that causes the pressure to slowly increase from a starting point up to your normal pressure, the adjustment you see is how long that process takes.

[OkyDoky]

The manual link above shows you how to enter the clinical settings and read all your settings. Also Sleepyhead will show them. The 4 may be the ramp starting pressure until reaches 10 if you are on fixed pressure. Do you know if you are using EPR?
Some people have a suffocation feeling at the low pressures and increasing the ramp pressure or even turning it off helps.

[jonny515]

Ramp is very hard to take, imo. But of course there are always people who do like it. The thing is 4 is very low, and I personally feel suffocated on 4. You can try turning it off and see what you think. You can also change the ramp to a higher low number (like 4 or 6), but you need the clinician's setting to do this.

"Breathing hot air"makes me think maybe you have a high humidity setting. You might try turning down your humidity. I live in the desert so I am not wanting it too low, this is a completely individual thing. Perhaps setting this to 2 or so??

I imagine you can control these two things, even if they didn't show you how to do this.

[Gcfcos]

Ramp is very hard to take, imo. But of course there are always people who do like it. The thing is 4 is very low, and I personally feel suffocated on 4. You can try turning it off and see what you think. You can also change the ramp to a higher low number (like 4 or 6), but you need the clinician's setting to do this.

"Breathing hot air"makes me think maybe you have a high humidity setting. You might try turning down your humidity. I live in the desert so I am not wanting it too low, this is a completely individual thing. Perhaps setting this to 2 or so??

I imagine you can control these two things, even if they didn't show you how to do this.

Thanks for the replys guys. Well last night I tried again with some music playing so I couldn't hear my breathing from the machine. You may have a point there as when I was just dropping off to sleep and felt myself about to stop breathing and gasp for air I didn't actually do it, I thought that's strange, I looked at the machine and the pressure was on 7! Haven't seen that before, I imagine the machine saw I was about to stop breathing? I managed to sleep for 2.5 hours (the longest yet) but then woke up again feeling like I was being suffocated. I'll tell the sleep clinic tomorrow they might be able to adjust it to start on 7 and maybe go up to 12 when I'm fully asleep

[GettingBetter]

Ramp is very hard to take, imo. But of course there are always people who do like it. The thing is 4 is very low, and I personally feel suffocated on 4. You can try turning it off and see what you think. You can also change the ramp to a higher low number (like 4 or 6), but you need the clinician's setting to do this.

"Breathing hot air"makes me think maybe you have a high humidity setting. You might try turning down your humidity. I live in the desert so I am not wanting it too low, this is a completely individual thing. Perhaps setting this to 2 or so??

I imagine you can control these two things, even if they didn't show you how to do this.

Thanks for the replys guys. Well last night I tried again with some music playing so I couldn't hear my breathing from the machine. You may have a point there as when I was just dropping off to sleep and felt myself about to stop breathing and gasp for air I didn't actually do it, I thought that's strange, I looked at the machine and the pressure was on 7! Haven't seen that before, I imagine the machine saw I was about to stop breathing? I managed to sleep for 2.5 hours (the longest yet) but then woke up again feeling like I was being suffocated. I'll tell the sleep clinic tomorrow they might be able to adjust it to start on 7 and maybe go up to 12 when I'm fully asleep

You are doing great. For the first few days, I was lucky to last an hour without taking the mask off and gulping for air. I had horrible nighttime panic attacks and it took a little while to feel safe again and sleep more than a few hours at a time. You can do this. Be easy on yourself, you will get this.

One thing that helped me was I didn't make a lot of changes. I ramped the humidity everytime. The machine was set to auto, which is fine, and the pressure / leaks / and events were all over the place so I concentrated on just getting done what I could: getting the mask to fit, taking my meds at the best time, sleep hygiene.

Happy Snoozes!
GB

[Gcfcos]

Ramp is very hard to take, imo. But of course there are always people who do like it. The thing is 4 is very low, and I personally feel suffocated on 4. You can try turning it off and see what you think. You can also change the ramp to a higher low number (like 4 or 6), but you need the clinician's setting to do this.

"Breathing hot air"makes me think maybe you have a high humidity setting. You might try turning down your humidity. I live in the desert so I am not wanting it too low, this is a completely individual thing. Perhaps setting this to 2 or so??

I imagine you can control these two things, even if they didn't show you how to do this.

Thanks for the replys guys. Well last night I tried again with some music playing so I couldn't hear my breathing from the machine. You may have a point there as when I was just dropping off to sleep and felt myself about to stop breathing and gasp for air I didn't actually do it, I thought that's strange, I looked at the machine and the pressure was on 7! Haven't seen that before, I imagine the machine saw I was about to stop breathing? I managed to sleep for 2.5 hours (the longest yet) but then woke up again feeling like I was being suffocated. I'll tell the sleep clinic tomorrow they might be able to adjust it to start on 7 and maybe go up to 12 when I'm fully asleep

You are doing great. For the first few days, I was lucky to last an hour without taking the mask off and gulping for air. I had horrible nighttime panic attacks and it took a little while to feel safe again and sleep more than a few hours at a time. You can do this. Be easy on yourself, you will get this.

One thing that helped me was I didn't make a lot of changes. I ramped the humidity everytime. The machine was set to auto, which is fine, and the pressure / leaks / and events were all over the place so I concentrated on just getting done what I could: getting the mask to fit, taking my meds at the best time, sleep hygiene.

Happy Snoozes!
GB

Thanks for your reply. Yeah that's what I'm getting like a panic attack. I think the main reason I'm getting so annoyed is that I'm back to work Monday (albeit part time) and if I don't get some sleep soon I'm not gonna be able to
Make it through the door!! I had a look at the instruction manual one of you guys very kindly put a link on here for me and it shows how to raise the pressure. I think I may raise the beginning pressure to 5 or 6 but
I'm not going to touch the top end pressure as that's what the specialist thinks is best i imagine?

[BlackSpinner]

You are doing good.
My sleep doctor insists that it takes up to a month before you brain adjust to let you sleep deeply. It has been working hard for you for probably decades to keep you alive. It may not be happy and feeling secure about this thing on your face. Working with your subconscious is like toilet training a toddler - getting angry with it will only make it worse, saying "NO" loudly doesn't work either. Kindness, rewards, and positive, present tense sentences works best. And patience, lots of it.

Remember to reward the right activity. Do not reward taking the mask off, reward keeping the mask on.

[Gcfcos]

You are doing good.
My sleep doctor insists that it takes up to a month before you brain adjust to let you sleep deeply. It has been working hard for you for probably decades to keep you alive. It may not be happy and feeling secure about this thing on your face. Working with your subconscious is like toilet training a toddler - getting angry with it will only make it worse, saying "NO" loudly doesn't work either. Kindness, rewards, and positive, present tense sentences works best. And patience, lots of it.

Remember to reward the right activity. Do not reward taking the mask off, reward keeping the mask on.

Thanks for that. I've gone into the clinical settings and turned the beginning pressure up to 6 from 4, just tried the mask on for a few minutes and possibly seems a bit better, I'll know when I go to bed tonight. I haven't touched the max pressure of 10 though untill after I speak to my specialist. The specialist at the hospital says I've got the worst case of osa he's seen in a while so a max of 10 seems low to me?