Newbie - will CPAP help with anxiety and cognitive function

[Riddeford]

Hi there!

I just got my CPAP less than a week ago. I've always been a heavy snorer and experienced apnea symptoms. In the past 5-6 years I've noticed periods of anxiety and cognitive problems - I often feel like I'm in a fish bowl and unable to process what is going on around me. I'm able to get by without people noticing but I always feel "out of it," and this causes major anxiety.

I'm 41, hit the gym 4-5 times a week, and am at about 13% body fat so weight was never an issue, but I'm always tired and have those days of complete brain fog/light headiness. My yearly physicals always come back normal for blood work. I finally decided to get a sleep study and it confirmed I had apnea and I got fitted with a ResMed Air Sense 10 autoset last Wednesday. So far, I have no trouble keeping the mask on but I'm still not sleeping well.

My questions are:

-- When will I start to feel the benefits?
-- If used properly, will the CPAP help with anxiety, brain fog, light headiness, and cognitive function?

The sleep technician who fitted me said it would "solve all my problems" and that I would start feeling the benefits within 10 days. My father in law has been using a CPAP for 12 years and said it "changed his life."

Thanks for reading this!

[robysue]

-- When will I start to feel the benefits?

It could be as little as a couple of weeks. Or it could be as long as a few months. It all depends on how quickly your brain learns to trust this new alien on your face as a friend and whether you hit any bumps in the road along the way.

-- If used properly, will the CPAP help with anxiety, brain fog, light headiness, and cognitive function?

It should help with all of those things since they seem to be the result of your untreated OSA, given the otherwise clean bills of health. It does take time, however, for the body to heal. And some people's bodies heal faster and more completely than other people's do.

The sleep technician who fitted me said it would "solve all my problems" and that I would start feeling the benefits within 10 days.

In my own opinion, the sleep technician is telling you a best case scenario. My own sleep doc told me that I'd feel wonderful after 2 weeks. I felt wonderfully horribly, awful by the end of two weeks because I was dealing with some very significant and somewhat unusual adjustment problems.

In my (not so humble) opinion, it's a mistake to tell people that they will start feeling better within a week or so. It takes most new PAPers longer than that just to learn how to sleep well with the equipment, sort out the mask issues, deal with any leak problems, and sort out the settings for the comfort features. And you do need to be sleeping all night, every night with the mask on before you start to notice any improvement.

And the improvement can be pretty subtle at first. Subtle enough where you might not notice it until or unless you are forced to sleep without the machine for a night or two.

My father in law has been using a CPAP for 12 years and said it "changed his life."

Lot's of folks around here agree with your uncle.

In my case, I've been PAPing for over 5 years, and I've never had a particular morning where I've woken up saying: WOW, I feel fantastic But once my most serious CPAP adjustment problems were addressed and I started (slowly) to sleep better with the machine, there were subtle but important improvements: No more pain in my hands and feet when I woke up. Fewer headaches. Not getting so exhausted by the end of the day. Somewhat better cognition. But the changes were so gradual that I didn't really appreciate just how much better I was feeling and functioning on a regular basis until I was forced to go without my BiPAP for a couple of nights while camping due to a battery failure. And later on I had to do a repeat sleep study sans PAP. And there's been one or two other nights in the 5.5 years since I started PAPing. And each time, I've woken up thinking: Gee I feel awful. Did I really feel this bad every day before I started CPAP?

So in spite of never having a WOW this is GREAT moment, I have to say that PAP has indeed changed my life and for the better.

Best of luck on your PAP journey.

[dhoppe]

Hi Riddeford - I thought I would add to what robysue said by just mentioning that I am now three weeks into my therapy and while I still feel sleepy during the day, I started to notice some improvements about two weeks in. Most noticeably, no more headaches and I am no longer experiencing muscle twitching in my chest.

The folks here are super supportive and knowledgeable. If you ever need help, I would recommend downloading the sleepyhead software here: https://sleepyhead.jedimark.net/

Also, here are some links to help you should you ever need to post some of the data:
These will help you get it organized and uploaded.
https://sleep.tnet.com/resources/sleepyhead/shorganize
https://sleep.tnet.com/resources/sleepy ... screenshot
https://sleep.tnet.com/reference/tips/imgur

They also like it when you add your machine and mask to your profile (make it show up as text).

Good luck!

[jnk...]

If bad breathing during sleep caused the problem, then improved breathing during sleep should help to solve it.

Thing is, though, that many of us also have health and mood problems that, although perhaps made worse by bad breathing during sleep, were not actually caused by bad breathing during sleep. PAP will not magically solve those on its own without further effort on our part.

Getting many good nights of restful sleep will help our problem-solving skills, though. That way, we can move on to doing positive things that we are now awake enough to do. We can, for example, be more active and eat better and make better decisions for solving other health issues. PAP may be the missing ingredient for getting someone to the point that he or she has the gumption to tackle many health issues in a reasonable way--even the ones not directly caused by OSA or directly affected by PAP.

[Janknitz]

If bad breathing during sleep caused the problem, then improved breathing during sleep should help to solve it.

Thing is, though, that many of us also have health and mood problems that, although perhaps made worse by bad breathing during sleep, were not actually caused by bad breathing during sleep. PAP will not magically solve those on its own without further effort on our part.

Getting many good nights of restful sleep will help our problem-solving skills, though. That way, we can move on to doing positive things that we are now awake enough to do. We can, for example, be more active and eat better and make better decisions for solving other health issues. PAP may be the missing ingredient for getting someone to the point that they have the gumption to tackle many health issues in a reasonable way--even the ones not directly caused by OSA or directly affected by PAP.

+++++1
Give CPAP time to work. If the problems persist, then on to other issues.

I found that CPAP did reduce my anxiety significantly. When you are spending all night bathed in stress hormones trying to breathe, it's tough on your body.

[BlackSpinner]

Keep a daily journal. The first results from this therapy can be subtle, like a slight change in moods, a bit more bounce - but nothing dramatic at first. However when you look back at your journal it will show. One think your brain does is forget how bad it was so unless you wrote it down you won't remember just how much life sucked.