New on here

[Lauramichelle]

I just joined this forum. I currently use a cpap machine but I'm still experiencing a lot of fatigue. How long before I get some relief and start to feel more rested?

[Sheriff Buford]

People are different. We all recover at different rates. Please post your equipment in your profile. Welcome!

Sheriff

[robysue]

I just joined this forum. I currently use a cpap machine but I'm still experiencing a lot of fatigue. How long before I get some relief and start to feel more rested?

It's highly variable. A few people start to feel better almost immediately. Some people start to feel better after the first few weeks. Some people take 2-3 months to start feeling better. And a few unlucky people take a very long time to start to feel better---as in more than 6 months.

In general, however, if you're still feeling tired and/or sleepy and you've been using CPAP for several weeks, it's worth asking some questions:

1) How much sleep are you actually getting each night? For a lot of new CPAP users, it takes a while to learn how to sleep well with a six foot hose attached to your nose. And until you are sleeping well with the machine, you're likely to still have problems with daytime fatigue or sleepiness.

2) Are you sleeping for long periods each night without the machine? Some newbies sleep 4-5 hours with the machine and then take the mask off and return to sleep. That's a bad idea: CPAP is supposed to be a full time therapy: If you're asleep, you should be using the CPAP. If you have a lot of events during the time when you don't have the mask on, that can make you continue to feel lousy during the daytime.

3) Does your machine record efficacy data? If so, you need to look at the AHI data. Titration studies provide good starting guesses for what pressure is needed, but sometimes as a patient gets more comfortable sleeping with the CPAP, they start sleeping more deeply and/or start having more REM sleep. Either could mean that the number of potential events goes up, and it could be that more pressure is needed to prevent events in REM from happening.

4) Does your machine record leak data? If so, you need to look at the leak data. Small leaks can be disrupting to some people's sleep and long, large leaks can lead to ineffective therapy. It is possible to sleep through large leaks that you are totally unaware of while at the same time being over sensitive to small leaks that occur when you are trying to get to sleep.