Cats, menopause and CPAP

[KittyMom22]

It's nice that she stays. I couldn't get any sleep and had to switch to a different room when my ex started CPAP.

I'm sorry your apnea is so severe. That must be tough to live with.

Right now I'm so exhausted and unable to focus I feel I should take a sick day. I'm totally unproductive. Hoping this gets better soon.

[KittyMom22]

I am sorry that your kitty is having trouble adjusting to you using the mask.

I would suggest that you try to train yourself to turn the machine off before removing the mask in the middle of the night.

First, that will eliminate the sudden loud hissing noises from the machine.

Yes, that was definitely my mistake. I need to move the machine closer so I can reach it more easily.

Sounds like kitty needs her own secluded hidaway spot somewhere inside the house. Unfortunately it's hard to get a cat to use a hidaway spot designed and set up by the human the cat owns. But you could try. Is there a closet or somewhere else that is quiet, dark, and small that you can provide access to and that is also far away from where the construction on the new bathroom will be?

And give kitty her space...But do try to offer to play with kitty if she has some favorite cat toys. And do offer special "treats" from your hand if kitty's health and weight allows such things.

Yes, she has places she can go but the new kitten always follows, which upsets her. I am giving her some kitten-free time every day and yes to extra treats.

Hopefully the construction won't take long.

Thanks for the encouragement. I feel so lousy it's hard to stay positive. I'm sure she'll adjust eventually.

Regarding the data, I don't have time to figure that out, nor do I feel like obssessing over squiggles on a chart. I did that with my Fitbit when it was new. I'm just trying to get adjusted to the machine. I will let my doctor, who is trained, do the interpretation.

[lazarus]

It's nice that she stays. I couldn't get any sleep and had to switch to a different room when my ex started CPAP.

Before I got CPAP, my restless, noisy sleep made it difficult for my wife to sleep anywhere near me, but now that I don't snore or do the parasomnia dance in my sleep, she gets a much better night's sleep. She's as thankful for my CPAP as I am.

But it took a while for me to dial in all the comfort settings and treatment pressures for myself. Most docs don't care so much about that aspect. No one cares about our own sleep more than we do, so if we want everything to be as effective and comfortable as possible, the highly trained people at this forum who are expert at looking at the data in the squiggly lines are invaluable. I ain't much good at that. But some here have the expertise to spot things about patient comfort that no doc will look for or care about.

Take control of your therapy. Accept help from fellow patients here. Be proactive. It pays major-bigtime dividends.

As for my wife "staying" in general, rumor has it that she only let's me stick around because she finds my antics almost as entertaining as a jumpy stray cat.

I'm sorry your apnea is so severe. That must be tough to live with.

Was severe. Now with CPAP I get better quality sleep than a person without OSA. Sleep is now one of the absolute easiest things about my life!

Right now I'm so exhausted and unable to focus I feel I should take a sick day. I'm totally unproductive. Hoping this gets better soon.

You have a lot on your plate.

We realize the brains of people who stumble into this place are generally pretty fogged in. Thus the seemingly over-the-top stress on the life-saving nature of PAP. Not fun to hear. Not fun to say. But that message getting through DOES save lives. Even when OSA is so-called "mild," a chronically sleepy, exhausted person is more likely to crash a car, fall in the home, or become life-threateningly depressed. We don't want anyone getting hurt or hurting any other humans or pets around them. So please don't be offended by the repetitive "save your life" chant in the background to the beat of the tom-tom drums as we dance around the cpaptalk bonfire.

We try to cut CPAP newbies slack. We remember what it was like for us trying to get a handle on our own lives and make sense of anything before we made a success of our PAP therapy.

[lynninnj]

Well said Lazarus. I just made a few of the same statements in a private message to the kitty mommy. I don’t know if she knows how to access them readily at this point but there’s a little red indicator on the upper right hand corner there tells you when someone has quoted one of your posts or notifies you of private messages. Hopefully she will read it and see that we are pretty much saying the same thing you and I.

thanks for sharing.

[KittyMom22]

I understand people are highly invested in CPAP specifically or they wouldn't be here. I just find the insistence that "other teatment = no treatment" an odd stance.

I also find the constant pressure to share personal medical info on a public forum a bit unsettling.

But I guess constant pressure is just a way of life for CPAP users. 🌬

[lazarus]

I sense that the force is strong with this one.

Then again, as they say in New Jersey, you can lead a cat to the litter box, but you can't make it pee.

Or something like that.

[lazarus]

just find the insistence that "other teatment = no treatment" an odd stance.

Experience and the literature show that for those who cannot or will not use PAP, other approaches reduce the problem by about 50 percent for only about 50 percent of the people, when compared to optimized use of PAP. That's why the odds are so heavily weighted toward the gold standard with this condition.

Of course, the people trying to sell you those other approaches seem conveniently to forget to tell you that.

We have no interest in pushing PAP. Doesn't cost us or earn us a dime either way. Our only motivation is love of fellow human. Well, that and irritating everyone else in the forum whenever possible with our lame jokes. Equally so.

[lynninnj]

I understand people are highly invested in CPAP specifically or they wouldn't be here. I just find the insistence that "other teatment = no treatment" an odd stance.

I also find the constant pressure to share personal medical info on a public forum a bit unsettling.

But I guess constant pressure is just a way of life for CPAP users. 🌬

If it makes you feel better, that is why I use SleepHQ.com with a fake name-so my real personal info isn't there. Pretty much the only thing any of us know about you is that you are a menopausal woman with cats, a cpap, and a mask, as well as you having a lot on your plate right now giving you stress.

Here's the thing-with much cpap experience here folks know what the "alternative treatments" are, their effectiveness, whether they are proven etc. For me personally I find cpap minimally invasive. The folks on here can tell you (or by your own reading) that you could have any number of "side effects" or challenges. For example: mask fitting issues, issues with your settings because the doctor didn't really titrate you to find your optimal settings with the DME just leaving it on factory defaults (which you will soon find are not helpful), hose management issues, falling to sleep issues, comfort, staying asleep, skin discomfort, leaks, and I could go on and on.

The ONLY thing that the doc might have an answer for is a setting change but he won't be able to help you help yourself like folks do here. Next time you go for your 1 month visit look at their eyes glaze over if you ask for specific help like you can get here. I personally prefer being empowered and insisted the sleep therapist show me how to change my own settings (I could have found that out here too) and had her look at my data to verify my settings were proper. I learned what they should be set on by looking at the data.

I have a buddy that started here the same day I did. I worry and wonder about him. He tried very very hard for two plus months to make it work for him and is likely still struggling. Great guy and I worry about him because he hasn't been on lately. He just started oxygen at night and his wife has pulmonary hypertension and needs oxygen as well. This is a symptom of untreated sleep apnea. You've been here for less than a week and everyone just wants to help.

So please take what you like and leave the rest. Just understand that we can't help you if you don't want to share the info needed to help you. Nobody has a dossier on you and nobody knows who you are.

Hope that helps.

[lazarus]

Any personal info such as copies of sleep studies and the like should have all identifiers removed that could serve as patient identification AND preferably the same for all identifiers of docs/techs/locations as a favor to the pros.

[robysue1]

I understand people are highly invested in CPAP specifically or they wouldn't be here. I just find the insistence that "other teatment = no treatment" an odd stance.

This is a forum about making CPAP work. Folks who are really interested in other treatments for OSA need to do some searching for forums that advocate those other treatments. And I'm sure that if you find forums that are about how to make other non-CPAP treatments for OSA work, you'll find lots of posters on those other forums swearing that CPAP ruined their lives and is absolutely the worst possible approach to treating OSA, even though xPAP is considered the "gold standard." It's the gold standard because if a patient is compliant with xPAP therapy, xPAP therapy will be able to reduce the AHI (along with RERAs and flow limitations and snoring) to normal levels for even the folks with the worst untreated apnea. And it's noninvasive.

I also find the constant pressure to share personal medical info on a public forum a bit unsettling.

Data posted from OSCAR contains no identifying information. We can't help you help yourself if we don't understand the problem, and often times the detailed daily data graphs show far more information about the problems they're dealing with than a typical new xPAPer realizes.

For example: You've complained about your machine blasting pressure at you and you've also complained about leaks. Both of these are real problems for lots and lots of new xPAPers, but they have multiple causes and each cause has different solutions. Looking at the daily detailed data would let us tell you what was going on when it felt like the machine was blasting pressure at you and whether there is something you can reasonably do to reduce the feeling that the machine is blasting pressure at you. The daily detailed data also lets us get a handle on the real size of the leaks as opposed to the subjective feel of the leaks. The fixes for leak masks depend on the real size of the leaks and how long those leaks continue. The subjective feel of the leaks can tell us that the leaks have to be addressed even if the real size is fairly small or the leaks are fairly short. But what you do to fix small, but irritating leaks that are waking you up is quite different than what you need to do to fix real medium-to-large leaks that are waking you up.

But I guess constant pressure is just a way of life for CPAP users. 🌬

Constant positive pressure to keep our airways open when we sleep so we can breathe more normally instead of having numerous micro-arousals to fix the fact that our airway just collapses when we don't use our machine.

[lynninnj]

Any personal info such as copies of sleep studies and the like should have all identifiers removed that could serve as patient identification AND preferably the same for all identifiers of docs/techs/locations as a favor to the pros.

Another reason why I don't care much for Oscar (sorry, I know you guys love it) but it shows whatever name you used to sign up for the software at the top so if you aren't careful the name may be posted.

I haven't seen anyone ask for a sleep study, just suggesting she get a copy of hers and see what some numbers were on it. (because we should all have copies of our healthcare records and that includes the prescription for the CPAP.) Half wondering if the doc would put the factory defaults/untitrated settings on a script. They would never NOT put a dosage of a med on there but it seems like PAPS might be the exception here.

[robysue1]

Half wondering if the doc would put the factory defaults/untitrated settings on a script. They would never NOT put a dosage of a med on there but it seems like PAPS might be the exception here.

Well, when a titration study has not been done, the first script for settings might as well be at the factory defaults. Because in that case, the doc is actually using the APAP as a titration device.

And given that titrating someone on an APAP for a few weeks is likely cheaper than one night in the lab, there's some economic sense in doing so. Some insurers now insist that an APAP be used for titration in the home rather than a titration study in the lab for this very reason.

As I recall, kittymom22 has not had a titration study. So its reasonable to assume the doc who wrote the script believes the machine can do the titration. Whether the sleep doc ever intends on writing a new script based on the data gathered by the machine is a question that kittymom22 ought to be asking the doc.

[lazarus]

I don't care much for Oscar (sorry, I know you guys love it) but it shows whatever name you used to sign up for the software

I am shocked, utterly SHOCKED! at the blasphemous heresy and nonconformist denigration! You just officially broke our entire groupthink dynamic, dangit!

I had a similar complaint about SleepyHead in the early days. I was told anyone with concerns should submit all false info and that it would all still work.

I'm so paranoid, I gave MyAir the wrong date of birth.
I mean, why should anyone but Bezos, Zuckerberg, the Russians, and the Chinese know all my intimate details?

That said, I hear OSCAR is purdy amazing, all in all. My only complaint is that it doesn't automatically default to the format of whatever Pugsy et al. want to see. That would be nice for everyone all around, seems to me. How hard would it be to add a Pugsy-format button, at least?

[babydinosnoreless]

I don't care much for Oscar (sorry, I know you guys love it) but it shows whatever name you used to sign up for the software

I am shocked, utterly SHOCKED! at the blasphemous heresy and nonconformist denigration! You just officially broke our entire groupthink dynamic, dangit!

I had a similar complaint about SleepyHead in the early days. I was told anyone with concerns should submit all false info and that it would all still work.

I'm so paranoid, I gave MyAir the wrong date of birth.
I mean, why should anyone but Bezos, Zuckerberg, the Russians, and the Chinese know all my intimate details?

That said, I hear OSCAR is purdy amazing, all in all. My only complaint is that it doesn't automatically default to the format of whatever Pugsy et al. want to see. That would be nice for everyone all around, seems to me. How hard would it be to add a Pugsy-format button, at least?

Lol you know I wondered that myself. Why doesn't it come in the format the experts want to see ?

[Pugsy]

My only complaint is that it doesn't automatically default to the format of whatever Pugsy et al. want to see. That would be nice for everyone all around, seems to me. How hard would it be to add a Pugsy-format button, at least?

Actually it (latest version) does default to the calendar being hidden which helps a lot.
As far as the other defaults...it's actually pretty close and if people would just read the "newbies please read sticky" first...it's very little extra work to get the desired format for review.

I have actually come to the conclusion that people would still change it into something we don't really need or want and they don't even bother with my other instructions.

I have quit worrying about it. If they don't/won't read then I shrug my shoulders as well. I just don't have the time or energy for all the hand holding.