Not working for me :(

[SleepyThing]

Hello everyone,

I have just joined this community and I am very happy to see there are a lot of knowledgeable people around that are willing to help others!

I have mild (very mild?) sleep apnea that was "diagnosed" after a night-long oximeter test. The test results that I had 13 events/hour (< 80 % o2 saturation). I understand that this is not a major case of OSA since some of you have 70+ events per hour.

Doc made me try a ResMed S9 AutoSet, set to auto (8 to 14). I am using a plastic tube with a Swift FX nasal pillow.

I've been using the device for two months with pretty much perfect "technical" results : full compliance on my part, no leaks, AHI of 0.3 or less every single night.

I'm pretty sad because in reality, I do not feel any more rested in the morning. Some people i've spoken with say that it can take more time (3+ months), and others seem to feel the improvement after only 3-4 nights!

Last week, I went on a fishing trip and chose not to bring my S9... Well, I didn't feel any better or worse when I woke up every morning.

I know that technically, the device does what it's supposed to do : I do not desaturate anymore during my sleep... However, I do not feel any better, which is why my doc is pretty much leaving the decision in my own hands... No desaturations, from a "metabolic perspective", is probably a good thing. But, I don't feel any better...

Now I need to make a decision : wether or not I wish to purchase the S9...

Did anyone go down this road? What did you end up doing and what were the longer terms effects on your sleep and overall health?

Thank you very much


SleepyThing

[HoseCrusher]

I am sorry to hear that you have several issues. Desaturation sounds like it is easily taken care of, and there are long term benefits from keeping your oxygen levels above 90%.

The other things that are causing you fatigue are going to be more difficult to assess. First you need to identify what they are, then figure out how to address them.

Using a pulse oximeter will show you that your xPAP therapy is working. Now you just need to figure out what else is going on.

[BleepingBeauty]

Hello everyone,

I have just joined this community and I am very happy to see there are a lot of knowledgeable people around that are willing to help others!

Hi, and welcome aboard.

I have mild (very mild?) sleep apnea that was "diagnosed" after a night-long oximeter test. The test results that I had 13 events/hour (< 80 % o2 saturation). I understand that this is not a major case of OSA since some of you have 70+ events per hour.

Doc made me try a ResMed S9 AutoSet, set to auto (8 to 14). I am using a plastic tube with a Swift FX nasal pillow.

I've been using the device for two months with pretty much perfect "technical" results : full compliance on my part, no leaks, AHI of 0.3 or less every single night.

I'm pretty sad because in reality, I do not feel any more rested in the morning. Some people i've spoken with say that it can take more time (3+ months), and others seem to feel the improvement after only 3-4 nights!

Last week, I went on a fishing trip and chose not to bring my S9... Well, I didn't feel any better or worse when I woke up every morning.

I know that technically, the device does what it's supposed to do : I do not desaturate anymore during my sleep... However, I do not feel any better, which is why my doc is pretty much leaving the decision in my own hands... No desaturations, from a "metabolic perspective", is probably a good thing. But, I don't feel any better...

Yes, it takes many of us some time before we feel rested as a result of our therapy. Often, there's a "sleep debt" we need to repay, from years of untreated apnea.

Your numbers are great, but there are also many other potential factors to take into consideration in getting restorative sleep, most of which can only be diagnosed during an actual sleep study. Things like restless legs, your sleep architecture (how your sleep "looks" w/r/t the various stages), etc. Without a sleep study, it's impossible for any of us to say what other factors might be in play for you. If the numbers look great but you don't feel any better, chances are something else is going on that needs to be addressed. It's great that your O2 levels are steady now, but that's not the be-all/end-all to getting effective therapy and feeling good every day.

Now I need to make a decision : wether or not I wish to purchase the S9...

Did anyone go down this road? What did you end up doing and what were the longer terms effects on your sleep and overall health?

Thank you very much


SleepyThing

If you've received any printouts of the data on your machine (from the doc), can you post some of the detailed pages for us here? (If you haven't gotten any printouts, can you request them?) It sounds like your therapy settings are working very well for you, but the detailed data gives a really good picture of when you're having events, what kind of events they are (apnea, hypopnea, central apnea, RERAs - Respiratory Event Related Arousals) and whether they're clustered together (which can really make you feel crummy).

Again, welcome aboard. We're happy to help.

[sangre]

I hear you and understand why you are feeling the way you do. Perhaps you do not need the cpap or perhaps you are stressed and find it difficult to have a restful sleep with or without the cpap. I would suggest you consider other reasons why you don't sleep well. There could be other physical symptoms that is causing your tiredness. Good luck to you.

[proctor78]

Hi,
I am new to cpap but I just wanted to say even the mildest case of apnea can do damage to the body... I am fortunate to feel the effects right away but still not 100% my doctor said the average apne patient needs to give it 6 months and many give up too soon.
This board is the best and I woould have known nothing without them so stick around and good luck...

[Wulfman...]

Hello everyone,

I have just joined this community and I am very happy to see there are a lot of knowledgeable people around that are willing to help others!

I have mild (very mild?) sleep apnea that was "diagnosed" after a night-long oximeter test. The test results that I had 13 events/hour (< 80 % o2 saturation). I understand that this is not a major case of OSA since some of you have 70+ events per hour.

Doc made me try a ResMed S9 AutoSet, set to auto (8 to 14). I am using a plastic tube with a Swift FX nasal pillow.

I've been using the device for two months with pretty much perfect "technical" results : full compliance on my part, no leaks, AHI of 0.3 or less every single night.

I'm pretty sad because in reality, I do not feel any more rested in the morning. Some people i've spoken with say that it can take more time (3+ months), and others seem to feel the improvement after only 3-4 nights!

Last week, I went on a fishing trip and chose not to bring my S9... Well, I didn't feel any better or worse when I woke up every morning.

I know that technically, the device does what it's supposed to do : I do not desaturate anymore during my sleep... However, I do not feel any better, which is why my doc is pretty much leaving the decision in my own hands... No desaturations, from a "metabolic perspective", is probably a good thing. But, I don't feel any better...

Now I need to make a decision : wether or not I wish to purchase the S9...

Did anyone go down this road? What did you end up doing and what were the longer terms effects on your sleep and overall health?

Thank you very much


SleepyThing

Welcome to the forum.

Yes, it can take some time for people to feel the benefits of the therapy.
Look at it this way.......maybe they caught yours before it got worse.

I see two things that could prevent your therapy from working effectively. One is the range of pressures that you're using and the other is the nasal mask.
The range of pressures can disturb some peoples' sleep. If you're entering a deep or REM stage of sleep and your breathing triggers pressure increases, they could bump you out of those stages of sleep and leave you feel unrested.
The nasal mask could allow you to leak your therapy air out your mouth while you sleep. When this occurs, your therapy is compromised and you will feel less rested. Too much leakage can also make the therapy numbers unreliable, too.

I would advise you to keep the machine and take control of your therapy.


Den

[Otter]

It does take some time to recover, but there could be other things going on. For instance, you could have alpha intrusions into your deeper sleep from minor pain, or maybe even from that bizarre contraption strapped to your face.

Have you ever looked at your data? It may be that you'll rest better with a narrow range of pressures, even if you aren't scoring many events.

I think what your doc did is pretty reasonable and should probably be done more often. Polysomnography is expensive, and there was no indication that you needed that level of diagnostic goodness. But if you don't feel better soon, you may want to go in for a full sleep study. While APAP and a pulseox will work just fine for many people, you may need PSG to fully understand your sleep disorder.

On the other hand, the way you feel may have nothing to do with your sleep disorder at this point. You could have another problem entirely. If you post your symptoms in detail, someone may have a suggestion to check out.

Hypoxia is something you're better off without, so if the oximetry showed a significant problem, I'd go ahead and keep the S9. PAP therapy is enough of a hassle that I doubt you'd be 100% compliant if it wasn't doing you some good.

[chunkyfrog]

I, too was diagnosed at a lil' bitty 13 events per hour--who knew it would affect me so profoundly.
I also expected new energy right away, but had to wait longer for that.
What I did get was a gradual--very gradual- rise in energy--it took months, I kid you not--months.
I did note an immediate cessation in the scary strenuous wake-up dreams with the rapid pulse thing.
After a few days, I realized I was not 'hitting the wall' an hour after lunch.
All improvement has been gradual--14 months later I really do feel and look a world better.
Patience, (sounds like a broken record, I know).
It gets better. Two months is a bit early. Hang in there.

[Pugsy]

How many hours of sleep using the machine do you average each night?
Do you ever allow yourself to sleep without the machine? If so how often and how long?
Do you sleep soundly the whole night or do you wake up for any reason?

[Emilia]

Fatigue may be also from other issues concurrent to your OSA. Low TSH (thyroid) or vitamin D3 levels may also be at play. Probably wouldn't hurt to have a good blood workup checking full thyroid panel, full vitamin D panel, magnesium, and B12.

Sleep debt does take a while to pay back. I am in month 11 and still have fatigue albeit nothing like I had before cpap. I am also older and I am sure that is part of it.

Keep using your machine. O2 desats can be deadly if not addressed.

[archangle]

What's your 90% (95%) pressure?

Have you checked your O2 sats while sleeping with the machine?

I think that number of O2 events per hour doesn't compare to the same number of apnea events. A lot of apnea events won't desaturate you quickly enough to show up as low O2 at the fingertips. You also may have several apnea events without your O2 coming up enough between events to trigger another count on the O2 event counter.

There is a considerable time delay between stopping breathing and low O2 at the fingertips.

The other risk is if you're really having apneas, they're probably damaging your brain, heart, and other organs even if you're not feeling the effects yet. Consider yourself lucky if you get apnea treatment before it does any actual damage to you.

That assumes you really have apnea. The 80% O2 readings probably indicate something is wrong.

[Snooze_Blues]

If you can afford the machine, I'd keep using it if it solved your O2 issues. There are so many problems that can arise from that. My sleep doctor has sent me a list of them twice now when I didn't show up for appointments and it scared me into compliance. ;o)

I've been PAP'ing for over 3 years. I'm still tired, but at least my blood pressure has dropped and I have a sense of confidence that a big issue has been resolved. My dad had an enlarged heart from years of "heavy snoring" that I now believe to be obstructive apnea, although he was never aware enough that there was a problem to seek diagnosis. Instead, he got a pacemaker, nearly suffocated every night snoring like a buzz saw, and died suddenly in a car crash after lunch. Who knows, maybe do to daytime sleepiness as he never failed to fall asleep in his chair regardless of what was going one around him. CPAP might have kept him around a lot longer.

When I was first diagnosed, my pressure was set too low. Not until a year later did they raise it with improved results. Over two years after that, they find I'm still having central apneas and are recommending a different machine. This occurs with about 7 - 10% of people. This, or another of many sleep anomalies, could be happening to you as well. Most people acclimate to CPAP after 3 - 6 months and these (not uncommon) transient central apneas go away, improving sleep and energy levels.

Sometimes doctors don't get everything right the first time around and you end up pealing the onion layers one at a time. Even though my numbers were almost as good as yours early on, no one was aware that I had serious enough central apnea issue to treat it, and I remain tired. Anything that disturbs your sleep by creating an arousal, an awakening, or disrupts normal sleep stage cycles can prevent the rest your body needs. Most of these things occur outside our awareness so it can be frustrating to depend on others to pin them down. And it can take a while. Don't give up. There may be other things going on with you in addition to obstructive apnea that need discovery. Until you find a solution for your tiredness and eliminate obstructive apnea as a component of the problem, I'd recommend keeping the unit.

I wouldn't dare stop my own PAP therapy, though. It's weird, but I now seem to have more awareness during the transition period between waking and sleeping, or else I just recognize that I'm gasping for breath after becoming aware of my apnea. Most of my violent dreams that awoke me in a panic are gone, along with the huffing and puffing that ended them and woke me, all likely due to apnea IMO, but it took a score of years to figure it out. Things are moving faster these days and awareness of sleep issues is much greater in the medical community. Good luck.