I'm 26, Male, from the UK. To cut a long story short, I've never been a great sleeper, for some reason I've alway tossed and turned a lot in sleep, very light sleeper, never awake refreshed from sleep. This has been going on well over 10 years. However I guess it was bad, but never bad enough for me to be cornened into figuring out what was going on. I just assumed the fact I was sleeping 8 hours a night, that maybe it wasn't sleep related.
At the end of 2017, I read a book called 'The Oxygen Advantage', it was actually during a period where I became interested in breathing and meditation. The book talks about the negative aspects of mouth breathing, and how we should be nasal breathers.. It dawned upon me I'd been a mouth breather most of my life, mainly because I tended to have blocked sinuses. At the age of around 12-13, I recall my sense of smell fading and my nose no longer feeling 'right', as if air flow was impaired. So anyway, I read the book, and made a concious effort to daytime nasal breathe. Lo and behold, my nose seemed to clear up a lot, allergies disappeared, quite amazing. Then I trained myself to nose breathe during sleep, by using medical tape to tape my mouth shut. Apart from a few times being woken by the fact I was trying to gasp for air through my mouth for some reason, I managed to sleep 'okay' doing that.
Ever since then, all my symptoms got worse. More fatigued, brain fog, sex drive has gone right down, just generally feeling bloody exhausted despite sleeping 8 hours a night. However if I have a night of sleeping say 6 hours or less, then its all amplified. I never originally considered sleep or the fact that breathing had ANYTHING to do with the onset of symptoms, so I had all my hormones checked, full thyroid, vitamins, minerals, inflammation... All came back good. I never get sick, my immune system seems to be great, and on paper I'm damn healthy. I eat well and exercise reguarly, so i have reason to be.
But I couldn't for the life of me understand why I was so constantly fatigued. My whole quality of life has just gone downhill.. then someone suggested sleep apnea.. So Saturday night, I took a home sleep study. I sent it off today for the results, so I figure they'll be back next week.
However, I also decided to record myself for the last 2 nights, to observe my breathing etc. I learnt that I snore occasionally, but very mildy and intermittently, its less of a rattling snore, sounds like more darth vader, but its certainly not anything compared to how I've heard some people snore lol. The fact that I sleep on stomach ( I can't sleep at all on my back) probably helps.
What I did observe, listening to my recordings, was that breathing sounds off. At times, I do stop breathing for upto 10-12 seconds, but very periodically, not continiously. This is when I started to think this probably isn't going to come back as OSA. However my breathing seems to have phases of being irregular, it sounds like im struggling to breathe at points, and I seem to move around a lot (rolling over 2-3x an hour). There are points where my breathing labours, and sometimes I suddenly take big gasps of air (however through my nose, not my mouth!) Most of my breathing by the sounds of it, is largely nasal now (so I guess my training worked lol.) However, even during the day, I get a constant sense that although my nose isn't blocked, it often feels like I'm not geting enough air through it. As if I'm very mildly being starved of oxygen.. If I lie down, this is more pronounced. Sometimes I can notice it before I'm even asleep, just laying there, it feels at times like I'm struggling to get air through.
So what I'm suspecting is, that I have restricted airways, and this is causing UARS. So rather than having constant apnoeas, I'm in a constant state of arousal hence the light sleep, fragmented breathing, constant moving around during sleep etc.
I live in the UK, and getting diagnosis via the NHS tends to be a VERY long process, and that's IF your doctor even takes you seriously (I have always found my local doctors but to be less than helpful, they're more than willing to give you anti-depressants, but don't actually want to explore why you might be feeling tired or off!!)
It also seems that if its OSA, it's fairly straightfowrad to diagnose, but if it's something like UARS, then that's even more difficult- whether you pay for it or not!!
So here's my predicament: I want to try an APAP. I'm fairly confident this is actually a sleep related issue now, and that on some level it is to do with my breathing. And the fact that it's all got worse since I trained myself to be a nose breather, leads me to believe it's probably due to restricted airflow in my nasal passages (which may explain why at a younger age I observed that sensation, and sense of smell faded a little.)
I hear mixed things, some people seem to say CPAP/APAP didn't help their UARS, other people have overnight successes. I can get hold of a Resmed Autosense 10 Autoset, which I've heard some people claim is one of the better models for UARS. I can't however AFAIK get hold of bipap or the others, just CPAP or APAP.
So I guess my questions are:
1) Is there any actual danger of trying APAP? Or is the worst case scenario it doesn't help, and I have a few funky nights sleep.
2) WHich model is best for UARS? I've heard some people talk about the Autosense 10 'For Her' Model, as it has some sort of feature which is actually better for UARS - recording RERA? Is that right? Should I be going for that over the regular Airsense 10 Auto?
3) I've heard some places claim that if the UARS is caused by nasal restriction, you're more likely to respond to CPAP/APAP therapy - can anyone confirm if theres any truth in that statement?
4) If I go ahead with trying APAP, can anyone advise me on the best settings to start with?
If I pick up the machine, I was looking at getting the new Resmed nasal pillow mask (the P10) as it looks like it'll be more comfier than some of the bigger ones, and it seems I seem to do a good job of being a nose breather these days (even if it's doing me wrong!)
I'd love to hear your advice and opinions. I know some people will think I'm crazy for wanting to try this without a confirmed diagnosis, but I feel so damn awful that I just need to try and find relief. I can't wait a year for diagnosis via the NHS, nor can I seem to find anywhere private in the UK that can reliably test of UARS. I left my job today due to the exhaustion and brain fog, I couldn't keep my role up. If needs must I will find work that doesn't require me to think for the time being lol, as the brain fog has totally impaired my ability to perform as I need to on a cognitive level!
Appreciate all of your help, and thanks for having me on the board! Thank you in advance.
