First 2 days- Hopefully an ongoing journal

[FeelingAwake]

I was here about 4 weeks ago asking questions and I appreciate all the help I got. I finally got my machine Tuesday and slept with it for the first time Tuesday night. I was absolutely floored by how quiet it was. There is literally no noise coming from this thing. And once my breathing goes to normal instead of me huffing loudly, even my breathing is for the most part quiet. According to my Dream Machine I got 6.8 hours of sleep my first night, which I think is pretty good after reading a lot of the comments here.. My pressure is set at 12, which is average from what she told me... Wife said it was the best sleep she's had in a really long time as well, as I didn't snore at all..

I woke up Wednesday(yesterday 3/29/2017) and felt good. The whole day I was more clear I believe. I was tired, but not the mind numbing tired of the day before(and the YEARS before).. I alternated between being somewhat tired and being very aware and awake.. Not sure if that was the placebo effect, but whatever, I'll take it. Because I really needed it. Work was an absolute mess yesterday. I am in Computer Networks and we had a serious issue that required HOURS of me concentrating and working with an advanced level Microsoft Engineer.. Didn't fall asleep yesterday and was able to stay engaged and focused...

Last night went to bed around 10 and don't remember having a hard time falling asleep... I have the nasal pillow mask and it felt a bit irritated at bed time but fell asleep pretty fast.. Woke up around midnight and 3 for bathroom and went to sleep again both time pretty quick. Machine said I had about 6.7 hours last night.. Woke a little tired but didn't last, was up and moving and here it is at the terrible 2PM in the afternoon and I am not tired. Just a tad bit, but not like before...


QUESTION to the community.. I have the medium sized nasal pillows and i really like them so far. It doesn't seem to keep me awake.. BUT, this morning I woke with a terrible pain inside my nose. It has gone mostly away throughout the day. But I am afraid its going to get worse and make me want to take it out in the middle of the night... I have spare pillows in a larger and smaller size.. Would changing help, and which direction? Smaller or Larger? Also should I put any kind of lotion or anything like that in my nose at night or during the day to help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated... I am VERY optimistic right now. For nearly 6 weeks I have been putting my life on hold with the hopes this would help me.. I was really getting towards the end of my rope with the tired thing.. It was affecting everything in my life to the worse.... I am hoping that going forward things will get better. I will update this thread as I go along so any other newbies can know what to expect.

Robert

[Pugsy]

Which nasal pillow mask?

Get some Lansinoh lanolin ointment/cream and apply a lot during the day and a tiny amount at night. Found in the baby aisle of most stores.
WalMart has it over with the nipples and bottles. Nursing mom's use it to help with nipple issues from breast feeding.

Size...hmmm...most likely I would try larger especially if you are using the ResMed P10 nasal pillow mask. Those tend to run a little small compared to others and they can try to climb up inside the nostril if they are a bit too small and when they climb into the nostril it hurts.
Be sure an watch any mask fitting videos. The most common error made by nasal pillow users is they crank that sucker down too tight and that also causes soreness.

Finally...the nostrils are pretty much virgin territory so they aren't used to having anything up against them so a bit of tenderness is sort of to be expected but anything more than very minor tenderness is not normal. They shouldn't caused a lot of pain and they shouldn't cause skin abrasions or noticeable bruising....if they do there is something wrong with either the fit or the sizing.

The Lansinoh will help a lot with the minor tenderness. Don't use a lot of it at night because your body warmth will cause it to melt and your nasal pillow might end up in your ear....speaking from experience here. Been there and done that.

You are already leaps and bounds beyond where I was even after a month of therapy. Good job.

[Pugsy]

Oh...when you have time please add your equipment to your profile so we can see at a glance what equipment you are using.
It helps us help you better/faster when we see what you are using and don't have to ask.
See how I did my equipment profile for examples.

[FeelingAwake]

Thank you for the fast response. I will stop at the store later and get that. And the pain was pretty good, so I am assuming that you are right and the pillows are going into my nose. So I will try the larger pair tonight.


I will get the model numbers and stuff and update later tonight or tomorrow.. I am going to try the sleepyhead software.. I haven't been able to get the dream machine to sync with my bluetooth apple phone yet. Not sure what's going on there. But the phone software should give me some basic information I understand.. I am a data person, so I am pretty anxious to get that working.

Thanks again.

[Pugsy]

The stuff you can see on the DreamMapper software thing is pretty lame...mainly what you can see on the machine's LCD screen so if you can't get DreamMapper to work you can still see it on the machine's LCD screen except you may need to go into the clinical setup menu and make a little change in one of the settings if you can't see it now.
There's a setting..."Show AHI" which needs to be turned to ON for the patient to be able to see the data available on the machine screen.
How to get to that clinical setup menu area in case you don't know..
http://www.apneaboard.com/dreamstation- ... structions

Get SleepyHead up and running as quickly as you can because it shows a lot more stuff than DreamMapper or the LCD screen data will show.

[palerider]

am a data person, so I am pretty anxious to get that working.

it'll give you what's on the machine display... just with pretty colors, if you're a "data person", don't waste your time with the phone app.

[FeelingAwake]

Thank you for the recommendations. I bought some of that cream and it really helped. Also moved to the bigger pads.. Didn't hurt as much, but also felt worse somehow. Airflow seemed constricted, might move back to the medium..

I also had an issue with humidification. I started off on my back for several hours(I've NEVER been able to do that), but then switched to my side around midnight and a bunch of water came out of the nasal pad area. Was really quite irritating. I didn't have any issues the night before like that. I had set the Humidy to level 5 out of 5 when I went to bed..

So at midnight I turned it back down to level 3 where it was the night before. And still had that issue for most of the night...

Night 3, still got 6.7 hours according to the machine... Feel very good this morning. As many have said, it isn't a EUPHORIA, OMG I am so much better!! Feeling.. More of a .. WOW I am not feeling like i need to go crawl up somewhere and take a nap feeling...

I think the rest is now up to me. I am going to enjoy this weekend and party it up and eat some bad things.. Starting Monday I am back on a regimen of eating better again and re-dedicating myself to my martial arts.. I am hoping with my new found awakeness(not a word I know), that I am able to make better progress.. Only by living the rest of my life healthy, will I get to that next level of improvement.. Just putting a mask on at night isn't enough.. PUtting the mask on is just the first and crucial step to getting healthy.. The rest is hard work, which being awake and not tired will make ten times easier than it was before I hope!!

[Pugsy]

Water in the nose pillows....See this thread posts number 2 and 3
viewtopic/t94035/Pugsys-Pointers-3Deali ... -road.html

Reducing the humidity level won't necessarily help if the moisture that is condensing the nasal pillows is coming from your own exhaled breath.
I know people not even using a humidifier at all who get condensation in their masks from the moisture in their own exhaled breath.

Is your hose a heated hose or regular hose? I assume regular hose because you mention humidity setting of 5 out of 5 with no mention as to auto or hose temp.

The water is annoying but won't hurt you but it will disturb your sleep...so we want to stop it.
Nasal pillow only condensation....maybe consider the barrel cozy or the heated hose. Explained in that link above.
You have several options to consider.

[FeelingAwake]

AHHH that's it!! Thank you again... I also turned on Heated Hose last night!! I bet that was it.. I will turn that off tonight and see if that helps at all...

Love this place.. Thank you....

Water in the nose pillows....See this thread posts number 2 and 3
viewtopic/t94035/Pugsys-Pointers-3Deali ... -road.html

Reducing the humidity level won't necessarily help if the moisture that is condensing the nasal pillows is coming from your own exhaled breath.
I know people not even using a humidifier at all who get condensation in their masks from the moisture in their own exhaled breath.

Is your hose a heated hose or regular hose? I assume regular hose because you mention humidity setting of 5 out of 5 with no mention as to auto or hose temp.

The water is annoying but won't hurt you but it will disturb your sleep...so we want to stop it.
Nasal pillow only condensation....maybe consider the barrel cozy or the heated hose. Explained in that link above.
You have several options to consider.

[Pugsy]

I also turned on Heated Hose last night!! I bet that was it.. I will turn that off tonight and see if that helps at all...

Huh???
If you turned the heated on last night the air should have been warmer and prevented the rain out.

Unless you had the hose air temp set really low.

[FeelingAwake]

One other question regarding Sleepyhead.

I have a philips Respironics Dreamstation. I don't know how to get the model number or if there are different ones..


I loaded up sleepyhead and loaded the Sim card.. And it started to read it, then told me my machine is not supported.. Do you know anything about this? The data it brought in was pretty much nill...


Any thoughts?? Thanks in advance.

[FeelingAwake]

I also turned on Heated Hose last night!! I bet that was it.. I will turn that off tonight and see if that helps at all...

Huh???
If you turned the heated on last night the air should have been warmer and prevented the rain out.

Unless you had the hose air temp set really low.

Well maybe I turned it off then?? I changed that setting yesterday before bed... I should have just left everything alone.. I will change the setting to the opposite of what it is now.. Maybe that is turning it back on.

[Pugsy]

I loaded up sleepyhead and loaded the Sim card.. And it started to read it, then told me my machine is not supported.. Do you know anything about this? The data it brought in was pretty much nill...

Confirm which version of SH you tried.....
and tell me all the wording you see anywhere on your machine or humidifier...all the words.

The model number is usually on a little sticker on the bottom or side of the blower...it will start with DSXxxx and then some letters
I hope it isn't DSX200.

[rohdej]

Just a word on pillows. I started with the medium, got the sore nose, found the lanolin, then I switched back and forth from medium to large for a bit trying to figure out which size to use. The different sizes would contact my nares in different locations, giving my skin a chance to heal. I settled on the large after I found that recentering the pillows on my nose with the air flow on helps inflate the pillow so I could get it positioned just right.

[palerider]

One other question regarding Sleepyhead.

I have a philips Respironics Dreamstation. I don't know how to get the model number or if there are different ones.. .

there's five or six different ones, they all look alike, check the label on the bottom.

you don't want the CPAP model, it's crap, if you got that bit of junk, take it back and make noise until they swap it out with an AUTO model.