Will I ever feel awake?

Juliebove · Post by **Juliebove** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 11:50 am

I am on about my third week of the CPAP machine and I feel more exhausted than ever! Most nights I am not able to keep it on for the entire time. Usually it is because I wake up to wetness inside the mask so I want to take it off. I did just get one of those fuzzy covers for the hose. Makes it feel a lot better when the hose touches me, but doesn't seem to help with the wetness.

Although I am finding the machine to be noisy and cumbersome, it does not seem to be interfering with my sleep so much. Or is it? When the alarm goes off, I feel like I didn't sleep at all and I can't wait to crawl back in bed.

Most of the time I get back in bed without the machine and fall right back to sleep. Only after a nap without the machine do I feel slightly more perky. But I also find I am having bizarre dreams now without the machine on.

Why would the machine be causing me to be more sleepy? I thought it was supposed to make me feel more awake?

Sleepy Boy · Post by **Sleepy Boy** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:14 pm

I think they call it sleep debt. Even though your on cpap-it will take some time for your body to get caught up on sleep. I've been on cpap for 9 mo's and I don't feel great everyday. But it's way better than before I went on it. If you fill out all the profile Info. with your mask, machine, etc. people on here can help you understand what's going on. Thanks, Larry...

bap40 · Post by **bap40** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:42 pm

The hose cover will help with what you are experiencing with the water, BUT turning down the humidifier might be needed also. Try that and see how it goes.
It does take awhile to get used to the whole hosing up experience and it also takes time for your body to "catch" up so to speak on the time you have lost by not sleeping well. We do need your machine and mask listed on your profile to give specific answers to any of your questions. One biggie is to find out if you are leaking air out of your mask or mouth at night. If so, it is possible to actually "loose" therepy that way. Even if you are recieving the full benefit of treatment, it does take some time to start to feel better for most people. For me it kinda dawned on me one morning that I was indeed feeling better. It was not an overnight observation. So just be patient and keep using your machine all of the time if possible. I won't even take a nap anymore without hosing up. I have been on my machine now for about 13 months and have finally gotten settings and a mask that works best to all work together to bring my numbers down to just barely over 1 AHI most of the time.

Again please list your equipment and good luck.

Juliebove · Post by **Juliebove** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:45 pm

Hmmm... I did put it in my sig but now it's not there. It wasn't centered though. Let me try to see what's wrong.

Now I see it there. It's at the bottom, to the right and in red.

bap40 · Post by **bap40** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:54 pm

Okay I see it also. Although I am not sure if your machine is data capable or not, someone else will have to chime in about that to see if you can track your numbers, like leak numbers and your AHI's and a whole slew of other valuable information. On the humidity level, the humidifiers on these machines pretty much never need to go above 1. I can not even turn mine on or I get that rainout. I just keep it hooked up, filled up with the distilled water and use it as a passover humidifier. I have had no problem with doing it this way and don't get any water.

Good Luck,

Brooke

cflame1 · Post by **cflame1** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 5:27 pm

It's fully data capable... have you been checking your stats?

kteague · Post by **kteague** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 5:35 pm

Hello and welcome. It is not unusual to take some time to adjust to all these foreign sensations when sleeping. It will help when they begin to feel familiar and you're not so hyperaware of their sensations.

Don't be too disappointed at not feeling better yet. Time and consistency will merit that expectation. I agree about turning the humidifier way down to reduce the liklihood of being awakened by water in the mask. That was the main cause for waking you mentioned. Are there any others you can pinpoint? As you whittle away the causes for waking, hopefully you'll sleep longer and longer with the machine. Also, knowing your data could help you to troubleshoot.

When I was untreated and even after starting cpap (at an ineffective pressure), I had bizarre dreams. I am convinced they accompanied apnea events, as they all a common theme of something or someone was either choking, suffocating, or smothering. Journaling your dreams may show a theme, but I wouldn't dream (groan ) of suggesting you sleep without your gear just to see.

I was not a poster child for early consistant compliance, and I must admit my results were in proportion to my progress in that effort. You are doing well to so soon be addressing the obstacles to reaping the rewards of your efforts.

SharkBait · Post by **SharkBait** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 5:45 pm

Make sure you dry that hose out real good, it might be residual water from before.

How did you arrive at 5-20 for a pressure setting. That's pretty wide open. You've got one of the better cpap machines and it's fully data capable. PM if you want to explore getting set up for accessing the data in your machine. Once you do that, board members can see some reports from your therapy and maybe help you improve upon it.

Sometimes your therapy is going quite well and it just takes some time to adjust, pay off the sleep debt, and get to feeling better again. But running on a 5-20 pressure setting is a rough way to approach it unless your doctor has it set that way to titrate you, but that should have only taken a few days...

Juliebove · Post by **Juliebove** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:26 pm

bap40 wrote:Okay I see it also. Although I am not sure if your machine is data capable or not, someone else will have to chime in about that to see if you can track your numbers, like leak numbers and your AHI's and a whole slew of other valuable information. On the humidity level, the humidifiers on these machines pretty much never need to go above 1. I can not even turn mine on or I get that rainout. I just keep it hooked up, filled up with the distilled water and use it as a passover humidifier. I have had no problem with doing it this way and don't get any water.

Good Luck,

Brooke

Aha! The guy who showed me the machine told me I would probably want it at 1. Breathing that water in was making me cold. We are having unseasonably cold weather here. I turned it to 2 assuming it would heat the water more. I also read somewhere online that 2 was the most common setting. Maybe that's the problem?

There is a card in there, but aside from taking it back to the sleep lab, I don't know that there's anything I can do with it.

Juliebove · Post by **Juliebove** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:27 pm

cflame1 wrote:It's fully data capable... have you been checking your stats?

No. The guy who showed the machine didn't get into that. How do I do that?

Juliebove · Post by **Juliebove** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:31 pm

kteague wrote:Hello and welcome. It is not unusual to take some time to adjust to all these foreign sensations when sleeping. It will help when they begin to feel familiar and you're not so hyperaware of their sensations.

Don't be too disappointed at not feeling better yet. Time and consistency will merit that expectation. I agree about turning the humidifier way down to reduce the liklihood of being awakened by water in the mask. That was the main cause for waking you mentioned. Are there any others you can pinpoint? As you whittle away the causes for waking, hopefully you'll sleep longer and longer with the machine. Also, knowing your data could help you to troubleshoot.

When I was untreated and even after starting cpap (at an ineffective pressure), I had bizarre dreams. I am convinced they accompanied apnea events, as they all a common theme of something or someone was either choking, suffocating, or smothering. Journaling your dreams may show a theme, but I wouldn't dream (groan ) of suggesting you sleep without your gear just to see.

I was not a poster child for early consistant compliance, and I must admit my results were in proportion to my progress in that effort. You are doing well to so soon be addressing the obstacles to reaping the rewards of your efforts.

The main cause for waking is the phone. Husband is in the military and they call him here at all hours. If not them, then it's him calling me. Yes, he calls from within the house, often for no apparent reason other than he's bored. He leaves super early for work.

My dreams are generally the same as always. Finding out I am being forced (for whatever reason) to work at a job I used to have that was just horrible. I don't think this has anything to do with the sleep apnea. I have had these dreams ever since I quit this job.

Juliebove · Post by **Juliebove** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 9:08 pm

SharkBait wrote:Make sure you dry that hose out real good, it might be residual water from before.

How did you arrive at 5-20 for a pressure setting. That's pretty wide open. You've got one of the better cpap machines and it's fully data capable. PM if you want to explore getting set up for accessing the data in your machine. Once you do that, board members can see some reports from your therapy and maybe help you improve upon it.

Sometimes your therapy is going quite well and it just takes some time to adjust, pay off the sleep debt, and get to feeling better again. But running on a 5-20 pressure setting is a rough way to approach it unless your doctor has it set that way to titrate you, but that should have only taken a few days...

I never see any water in the hose. Even after washing, it always seems dry by the time I put it back on.

I didn't arrive at those settings. The Dr. did. I don't know how. I slept very little...something like 3 hours when I did my sleep study. I go back on the 10th to the sleep lab so they can read my card. I guess I will know more then.

I have also had pneumonia and bronchitis and was doing a lot of coughing at times. Sometimes I would take off the mask when I was coughing too much. Just seemed like the thing to do.

My dad has been on a CPAP for several years now and he says he feels no better with it than without. The Dr. also kind of implied that he wasn't sure a CPAP would work for me. He said it doesn't work with some people. He said he thought I might have mild to moderate sleep apnea. I can't remember now how many times they said I stopped breathing but it worked out to like every 4 minutes.

cflame1 · Post by **cflame1** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:36 am

our-collective-cpap-wisdom/checking-CPA ... tings.html

Check in there... and the one on changing pressures as well... one of them will have it. Any of the M-series directions will have it.

Your RT probably didn't enable it, but that's a small change to make.

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