Cpap and sleep aids?

[Kotengu]

Is it common to use sleep aids to tolerate Cpap? I have been taking Melatonin to sleep but even without the mask, I wake up sporadically throughout the night. Sleeping with the mask on seems almost impossible. So, has anyone had any luck with sleep aids?

[TerryB]

Kotengu,
Basically, you have to find out what you need to make this PITA therapy work for you.
I see that you are new to the forum so I suspect that you are new to CPAP too.
You'll need to consider if any of the following are causing you discomfort and find a fix:
1. I have used about 8 masks over the 5 years of treatment and my Swift FX is the best yet.
Mask problems are leaks, noise, easy dislodging, etc.
2. Are you loosing treatment pressure out of your mouth, which has opened when you fall asleep?
You may need to use a chin strap and/or may need to seal your lips.
3. Is the machine noise bothering, do you listen to your own breathing and think about it?
I use ear plugs and can't hear the machine at all.
4. Is there too much light in your bedroom disturbing your rest?
You made need additional darkening of the room.
5. Finally, I have quite a cocktail of meds I take every night:
Blood pressure
Tylenol
Antihistamine
NSAID
I'm asleep within minutes and generally sleep about 6 hours before waking to check the clock and the bladder, then back to sleep to 8 total.

As I said in the beginning, explore all the possible irritants and dispose of them, you'll sleep better and feel beter.

Good Luck,
TerryB

[jmelby]

A lot of times, a doctor will prescribe Ambien to help you get used to cpap. You could try over the counter sleep aids first, but yes, sleeping pills can help for some people. One thing I found helped me was to have a fan running in the room to produce white noise (actually I still do this)--what I found disturbing was being able to hear each breath from the machine, and the white noise drowns that out.

[robysue]

Kotengu,
3. Is the machine noise bothering, do you listen to your own breathing and think about it?
I use ear plugs and can't hear the machine at all.

And while this works for Terry, it may not work for everyone. Depending on how you have your machine and hose set up and depending on your own ears, much of the "hearing your own breathing and machine noise" at night may be conducted noise that is coming directly from the hose, through your bed pillow, blankets, body, or bed partner's body, and directly into your inner ears through your skull and by-passing the ear drum and middle ear entirely. In that case, using ear plugs will likely make the noise WORSE, not better because the plugs will block all or most the ambient outside atmosphere noise, but none of the conducted noise.

So if earplugs seem to make the problem worse, chalk it up to a "your mileage may vary" moment.