Mask removal in the night... UGH

[Nooblakahn]

I know this is a topic that has been discussed in depth, and I can read previous topics... just more needed an avenue to vent a bit.



So this one I woke up in the middle of the night thinking it was morning.. and fell back to sleep before I put my mask on.



This one....



... and this one I don't know what the heck happened. I woke up with my wife asking me why I was snoring. Not sure how I have gone 20 days without this happening.. and then is starts? I've read the threads about taping, and may do so.. but this is only 2 days out of 29 that I did this unconsciously... so I might give it a bit.

At least this is proof that the therapy is working. These 3 days I woke up feeling like hell, and that was only 2 hours of sleep missing the therapy.

[Sir NoddinOff]

Tape the damned mask to your face... we keep telling you guys that! Don't make me come over to your house, sucka. Just kidding, you'll get over taking off the mask after a short while.

[Nooblakahn]

Come to my house, for what? I already get "hosed" every night. ")

[Pugsy]

FWIW...I still do it on a rare occasion.
Sometimes I realize it and sometimes I don't. When I realize it I have all the best intentions of going ahead and getting up but the aliens make me stay in bed.....and I think they give me some drug to make me go back to sleep.

And no....I never bothered to tape my mask to my face...not for a random rare alien visit..
Knowing my aliens..they would probably remove the tape and give me some Versed so I wouldn't remember that either.

[cosmo]

I removed mine last night around 2am to fix a leak, fell back asleep before putting it back on. Paying the price for it today, throat is pretty sore

[Nooblakahn]

Yeah. I did even better last night. Fell asleep without putting my mask on... what a horrible day that made. Finally woke up about 3 am and put it on. So that was almost 3 hours. First night I didn't hit compliance. Gonna start putting my mask on before I even lie down. Its already adjusted so why not. Will keep this from happening.

[kteague]

Yeah. I did even better last night. Fell asleep without putting my mask on... what a horrible day that made. Finally woke up about 3 am and put it on. So that was almost 3 hours. First night I didn't hit compliance. Gonna start putting my mask on before I even lie down. Its already adjusted so why not. Will keep this from happening.

Early on in my treatment I was such a zombie I had to implement some safeguards to prevent falling asleep before putting on my mask. First tried just not laying down till it was on, but would find myself waking up well into the night sitting upright on the side of the bed, mask in hand. I could sleep hours sitting upright but only minutes lying down (legs couldn't jump as much when flat on the floor). Anyhow, had to resort to putting my mask on while still standing. Did that for several weeks until my extreme zombie period began to resolve.

[Xney]

If it's just once in a while, don't sweat it. If it happens regularly, tape it to your head/hair, or make it difficult/painful to remove in other ways.

[Ricoh]

Taping never worked for me. My skin really doesn't like any kind of tape, medical or otherwise.I struggled a bit in the very beginning, but within a month or two it was a rare occurrence indeed to wake up without my mask on. A few things I learned the hard way that helped me though:

• Put the mask on before you lie down
• Never, ever consciously indulge in any kind of nap without the mask

Probably thanks to the second bullet point, it now feels really wrong to sleep without the mask, so chances are good I'll wake up and put it on, rather than the other way around.

[avi123]

IIMO, it's good to skip the machine and/or the mask for a few hours, occasionally, if overall you sleep OK. It prepares you to sleep in those cases of power stoppages.

[Madalot]

IIMO, it's good to skip the machine and/or the mask for a few hours, occasionally, if overall you sleep OK. It prepares you to sleep in those cases of power stoppages.

I *might* accept this (not agree, but accept it as a possibility) for cpap/bipap users, but once a person ends up on ASV, the need for the machine is pretty extreme and skipping a few hours, even occasionally, probably isn't a good habit to get into.

[Nooblakahn]

Yeah. I will be sure to put it on before I lay down as kteague pointed out. That was the conclusion I came to last night as well, to prevent a repeat of what happened the other night. Agreed as well, I don't think I'm at the point of needing to tape yet, and would rather not have to do so. I have sensitive skin and when I had gauze taped to my back the tape was irritating it as well. Not sure how I didn't think of that applying to taping the mask.. I'm sure it would be the same result. I don't nap to often so that's not to big a concern. The one nap I took while on the machine I did wear my mask for the entire 2 hour nap .

Avi, I'm of a different opinion. During my polysonogram portion of my split night study, I had an ahi of 116. I'm sure if for an entire night, it would have been higher, as events tend to occur more frequently at the end of the night, at which point they already had me on cpap/bipap, and I had shown some slight improvement. I'm sure my oxygen desaturation would be alot lower that the 78% that popped up in my study as well.. as we would have the same events going for 8 hours instead of just 4. Also, even failing to use the machine for 2 hours out of a night I can feel a difference when I wake up, I still feel like I'm recovering today, from Wednesday nights missed 5 or 6 hours. It really feels like a hangover, but I didn't even have the fun of drinking the nights before these incidents happen (haven't even drank since I got my first study results back). Intentionally skipping the machine is not a forte I ever plan to go into. I do dread the power outages... next time that happens here, I will plan to sleep at my mom's house. Her house is on the same line as the hospital, and generally gets power restored rather quickly. I still need to fax my script over to my electric company as well... as I want to be on their medical necessity list.

Thanks everyone for the support, and encouragement, and letting me have my little vent here. Hopefully I can go back to being the duck that I was when i first started out. I'm surprised by how quickly I took to this therapy, and am grateful that I've had a much easier road then most who need asv... as I was given the right machine the first time, and did not struggle to get used to the changing pressures. I still feel this is much easier to get used to regular bipap or bipap st. I haven't noticed where I've had to learn to breathe with the machine as others have stated, it more seems like it breathes with me.

(I really hated the ST during my titration. Straight bipap was not fun either now that I think about it. I'm glad that neither of those were perscribed to me.)