Using CPAP forever!

[Dive Apnea]

How did you all come to grips? I mean, think of the carefree days of just plopping in bed, not worrying about leaks in your mask, the air tube not reaching where you are trying to move to in the middle of the night. Other intimacies... The little itch on your nose that makes you pull your mask off for a moment, or keeping your mouth shut, so you don't gasp... I was talking to my wife about this, and how life changing/cramping your style it is...

The point of the post is not to point out better sleep you get now, I have luckily already experienced that with a non-data machine, nor is it to point out that you will live longer averting heart failure or stroke, etc...

The point is coming to that realization that you are not "normal," for lack of a better term, and will ne strapping a Darth Vader mask to you face for the rest of your life... What was that process like? While I am all in... I am still coming to terms with that notion, my life hangs in the balance of this machine, and it is not like popping a pill before you go to bed, it is combersome...

Any thoughts...

[Bons]

It sucks, but you just do it one night at a time and try not to think about every night for the rest of your life. TONIGHT I will sleep with it.

It may also help that I've worn glasses since the age of 5, so I'm used to needing to plop something on my face everyday.

And, strange as it seems, you get so used to it that it will eventually feel strange not to use it. I used to give myself a night off every once in awhile (maybe once a month) just to sleep on my stomach or burrow my face in a pillow. But now when I do that I end up putting it on halfway through the night. The air soothes me, I guess, and the hiss of the machine is a white noise I've gotten used to and miss when it's not there.

[LSAT]

The point is coming to that realization that you are not "normal," for lack of a better term, and will ne strapping a Darth Vader mask to you face for the rest of your life... What was that process like? While I am all in... I am still coming to terms with that notion, my life hangs in the balance of this machine, and it is not like popping a pill before you go to bed, it is combersome...

Any thoughts...

The rest of your life will be much shorter without CPAP. Your choice.

[mayondair]

A lot of us have had rough starts, just take on one night at a time, it will become NBD, just like brushing your teeth or putting on glasses. I don't think I could sleep without mine now You'll get all the little details worked out, hang the hose, get a longer one if you need more room to move, when you get everything dialed in you wont have to worry about data every day. You may even come to love the machine because of how good it can make you feel. As for ahem it only takes a minute to take the mask off, just put it back on before you fall asleep Kathy

[Dive Apnea]

The rest of your life will be much shorter without CPAP. Your choice.

Yeah, I realize that, hence the caveat of not taking that factor in consideration in my original post.

[jabman]

I think I thought about it for one day, and didn't give it much thought at that. I felt better after my first day and accepted that I would need this for the rest of my life. But then I was Dxed with diabetes a week after apnea and that took a little while to digest.

[BlackSpinner]

How did you all come to grips? I mean, think of the carefree days of just plopping in bed, not worrying about leaks in your mask, the air tube not reaching where you are trying to move to in the middle of the night. Other intimacies...
The point is coming to that realization that you are not "normal," for lack of a better term, and will ne strapping a Darth Vader mask to you face for the rest of your life... .

I have never been "Normal" anyway! I was so relieved to realize I was not about to die, have Alzheimer's or other nasty stuff that I adopted it like a lover.

I have to say I watched my mother struggle with diabetes and accept injecting insulin and testing for years, plus the whole mask is much more comfortable then my bra has ever been, because yeah every morning since I was 13 I put on a bra, it is a fact of life when you are a well developed woman that you will be strapping on that device to keep the boobs from jiggling and causing men to lose it so for the safety of the work place we strap on TWO darth vader devices.

[Culby]

When put it in the context of "This is the device that helps me sleep. This is the device that helps my wife sleep," I don't mind putting it on one bit. In fact, when it was suggested that I need to take a couple of nights off, I got a little nervous about it.

In fact, the "rest of your life" idea just cements the idea that I better be doing it right. (In fact, I'd say it's putting too much pressure on me to get it done. I got all the time in the world, right?)

[Bons]

The sleep apnea diagnosis depressed me a lot less than the most recent one of bone degeneration. I can do something about the apnea, so the ASV empowers me. Not much to do about the spinal damage.

[Resister]

I'm still digesting the fact I need to do this forever. I'm not even 40 yet!

Keep hoping that one day someone will invent "a better way." Until then, welcome to the Pap party!

[rogerconnelly]

Dive Apnea, if you click on the "home" icon and look at the top of the list of topics, you will see a pinned topic titled:

Especiallyfor newly diagnosed - Dealing with Change

Or just click this link:

viewtopic/t61785/Especially-for-newly-d ... ml#p578692

There is a link on the first post - you might want to read it - it really helped me - and remember, you are not going through this alone

[Newbie Woman]

Right now I'm just thrilled at the prospect that one of these days I'll routinely sleep like I slept last night. Waking up full of energy and not craving a nap all day is almost too good to be true. I still have my bad days, but now I know they're bad, not normal.

[ameriken]

Process? Coming to grips? I guess it's all a matter of how you look at things. As a normal, healthy, happy go lucky kind of person, I've never had to deal with any health issues. In fact, that was my only fear in life: to be diagnosed with something severe and debilitating that caused me much pain and suffering. It still is.

As for CPAP, there was no process for me nor did I have to come to grips with it. Before I knew I had apnea, I felt so damned awful every minute of every day that I thought my worst fear was coming true: that I had something that was going to slowly kill me. Something was taking the life out of me. The way I felt, I honestly thought I was dying a slow but sure death. Every night I would sleep for 8 to 10 hours, thinking I was getting some really deep and restful sleep, but every single morning I'd wake up feeling like I was run over by a truck and all my blood was sucked out of me and there was no life left in me.

However, when I learned that I had sleep apnea, it was a celebration for me. I wasn't given a death sentence, but a second chance. People out there are getting terminal diagnoses of cancer, alzheimers, or suffer through some other kind of debilitating disease or illness. Someone here mentioned bone degeneration. And me? As awful as I felt, do I really have something I can complain about? I have an easy fix and a second chance, a chance to feel good again and live a normal life because the solution is so simple: all I have to do is sleep every night. Sure, with a mask and machine, but BFD. That's a hell of a lot better than being hooked up to a dialysis machine or chemotherapy or oxygen, a catheter, or some other kind of wiring and tubing, while permantently stranded to a hospital bed.

I really wonder how those people come to grips and how they feel about the carefree days they once had? I have mine back, they don't.

So, for me, there was no coming to grips with it. I've been blessed and will gladly wear my CPAP forever. My first day I was so excited that when I got my machine, the first thing I did was put my mask on and take a nap. The second thing I did was put my mask on and go to bed early. I pray for those who have it worse than me, and I thank God that I've only had a minor setback and slight inconvenience because I have not been diagnosed with something that people really have no chance of surviving.

[ems]

It's not easy to come to grips with, that's for sure! However, when I think about other things I could have heard from my doctor, this just doesn't seem so terrible. Anyway, I don't see an alternative. Hopefully, one day there will be something that doesn't seem so annoying and invasive. Until then...

[Goofproof]

If dealing with XPAP treatment is all your lifes problems, you are blessed. If you need XPAP, but don't use it correctly, then life will cut down the time you need to use XPAP. Jim