Night one down..

[laxmom]

So last night was my first night with CPAP. I found it to be not as scary as I firs was dreading. Don't get me wrong I woke up multiple times with a panic type attack but was able to calm myself down without removing the mask and fall back to sleep. Now I know my stats say I slept over 7 hours with it on last night but most the night I was just awake wearing it. I posted my sleepyhead stats below. I was at 42 apneas an hour before starting treatment last night and I have a few questions for you veterans if you have a minute to answer.

1. I know I went from 42 to 5 an hour and that 5 is where they start therapy. Should I expect to see this number go down in time?
2. How long did it take you to actually fall asleep with the mask on and not just lay there awake? Any tips to falling asleep that don't include wine?
3. Do my stats look ok for the first night?
4. Could my leak rate have to do with the fact that i just go the machine yesterday and was playing with it during the day to get the fit right before going to sleep? I only woke up once last night where I felt a leak.

Average Hours Per night: 07:32
AHI 5.18
Obstructive Index: 1.33
Hypopenea Index: 1.46
Clear Airway Index: 2.39
RERA Index: 1.73

Average Leak Rate: 11.23
90% leak rate: 19.20
% of time above leak rate threshold: 2.15

Average pressure 11.13
Min pressure: 4.0
Max: 17.24
90% pressure: 15.53

Thanks so much for your time and advice. I'm really happy I found this forum.

Kim

[grayghost4]

Welcome :
For the first night you did "GREAT" as Tony would say :

the only change I would suggest is to raise the lower pressure of 4... up a little to 6 and see what happens.

you will need the Clinician. manual or look at a video of how to change the pressure

https://sleep.tnet.com/reference/docs

[Bergie51]

I'm on my third week with a Resmed nose pillow system and it's true what they say: it gets easier and easier the more you use it.

Don't know if you have a ramp-up time on your pressure setting, but I turned mine off so I get the full pressure right away.

It also is taking me less and less time to fall asleep. At first I'd lie awake for an hour or more before drifting off.

An unexpected benefit for me: I used to get painful leg cramps at night and have had NONE since starting the CPAP treatment. I wasn't even expecting that.

[Mudrock63]

1. I know I went from 42 to 5 an hour and that 5 is where they start therapy. Should I expect to see this number go down in time?
2. How long did it take you to actually fall asleep with the mask on and not just lay there awake? Any tips to falling asleep that don't include wine?
3. Do my stats look ok for the first night?
4. Could my leak rate have to do with the fact that i just go the machine yesterday and was playing with it during the day to get the fit right before going to sleep? I only woke up once last night where I felt a leak.

The first night was the hardest for me. Answers.....

1 and 3. That is a pretty dang good number for the first night. It may go down a little bit more as you get used to treatment. One thing to learn now is that every night is different. So you may be trucking along fine getting 5's every night and then suddenly get a 13. It just happens. It is your average number over time that matters and tells you how effective your settings are for you. Going from 42 to 5 means at least your sleep doc got you in the ballpark on the first try. Good for you. Many here take control of their own treatment by studying up on this forum, posting data, and asking for advice. A lot of that depends on how YOU feel. If you feel great with 5 or whatever your average number settles at, then that is what matters the most. Some of us spend a lot of time tweaking and adjusting to try to get the number as low as possible. If you decide to go down that road, again, there are people here who can help. But it will take a lot of effort on your part to get educated enough to adjust your settings, post your data, and discuss it intelligently with the fine folks on this forum. I was diagnosed as severe OSA with an AHI of 37 and very low oxygen levels. My initially prescribed settings only lowered my AHI to the mid-20's. With help here, I have gotten that reliably below 2.0. I did have a night above 3.0 this week, but again, stuff happens. No worries.

2. This is going to get a lot easier as you go along and get used to receiving the treatment. After the first couple of days, it just becomes a matter of routine. Once you start experiencing the benefits of treatment, you are going to look forward to strapping that thing on every night. Actually, every time you sleep. Period.

4. Yes, your data can be "corrupted" by a number of things. The machine does not know if you are awake or not, or what you are doing with your mask. It merely records what it thinks is going on. Try adjusting your mask while you are lying down to get a leak-proof fit. Also, your awake breathing is totally different from your asleep breathing. So if you are lying there awake with your machine going, the data may flag some events that aren't really happening.

Get a week or so of data and see how you are feeling and how your numbers are averaging out. Read everything you can on here. This is a great resource if you can avoid the drama mamas.

[Okie bipap]

You're actually doing better than I did when I first started. I could only stand the mask for two hours the first night. It took three or four nights before I could keep it on all night. When first started, it took me 45 minutes to an hour to get to sleep. Now, I fall asleep within a few minutes of putting the mask on. My body and mind have learned the mask means sleep, and goes there quickly.

[BlackSpinner]

You are doing great.
The stats for the first few nights can be quite useless. There will be a lot of sleep/wake junk.

My doctor didn't believe in looking at the stats for the first month. He said the first month was all about learning to sleep with the machine. Your brain may not allow you to sleep deeply at first because it doesn't trust the machine. So valid stats only show up once you can drop into deep sleep and REM. So don't get hung up on the stats the first week, as long as they are around 5 you are good.

[Janknitz]

I'm a bit sensitive and had a lot of claustrophobia, so it took me quite a while to actually sleep through the night. But, Oh, when I did, I woke so calm and comfortable for the first time I could remember since I was a little tot in the crib (I think I have had apnea all that time!!!). Totally worth it. Once I knew how great it could feel, my big goal was to feel that way every morning when I woke, and eventually I got there with CPAP.

I just took it in baby steps, gradually increasing my use time and trying to identify the barriers one by one.

When I had a panic attack in the mask I trained myself to take 10 slow breaths before removing the mask (it's HARD when you are panicking!). After a while I started to fall back to sleep before I got to 10, and then the panic attacks stopped coming. The unexpected bonus is that I was having some daytime panic issues, too, and once I got to using CPAP effectively, those disappeared, too!

It took me about 3 months to get to that first time I woke feeling great after having slept all night, but it was worth it. Most people don't take that long to get to that point. Here's wishing you a shorter journey!