Had first night!

[Thellra]

It only took 3 months from referral to getting the machine but last night was my first night, I managed to keep the mask on for 4hrs (That'll keep the insurance company happy) before I took it off, placed the mask nicely on the nightstand and turned the machine off. At which point my wife asked me why I was taking it off and I replied by snoring at her...

My sleep study AHI was 20 and for those 4 hours it was 1.85!

Machine was set at 5-20 CM and while i was trying to fall asleep the low pressure was driving me bonkers and I pumped it up to 7 or 8

Seems like the lowest AHI was when the pressure was above 9. Would it be a terrible idea to raise the low value to 9 on the machine? or is this fiddling best done over weeks instead of days?

[Bill44133]

Do what makes you comfortable. So you can sleep good. Some times to big a range will disturb your sleep.

[Julie]

If all you're going to do is sleep 4 hrs a night to satisfy the insce. co., rather than get a decent's night's rest, you won't feel better and will likely end up quitting altogether. It's good that you're prepared to raise the pressure - no one can really relax and breathe properly at 5, but if you're also using the ramp feature, starting at a low pressure, you're defeating things that way. Most of us I think turned that off within a week unless our low pressure setting was extremely high. Why just the 4 hours?

[Thellra]

You'd have to talk to unconscious Thellra on why I took it off

[BlackSpinner]

You'd have to talk to unconscious Thellra on why I took it off

Tell your wife to give you a good sharp kick when you take it off.

[HerbM]

My Dx was AHI 49.

...with a failed titration but knowing that 6 was too little air to make me comfortable with the mask.

Rx started at 6-12.

Almost immediately, I turned mine up mostly because of wanting more air but also secondarily to get my AHI down.
..
I did it in stages (also had the DME turn off RAMP or I would have done that too) watching my numbers AHI and pressures in SleepyHead and Rescan.

Currently at 11-14.4 with AHI 0.2 last night (2 CAs the APAP can't help.)

This does NOT mean that this is good for you, but it means that someone can with care take charge of their own treatment.

Make sure you know what you are doing, and ask some people here (like Pugsy) to help you review the data and maybe your plan.

No one here can prescribe for you but they will tell you if you are considering something likely to be counterproductive.

[Thellra]

My Primary Care also has OSA, and I texted her that I got my APAP finally and she told asked me if I had the provider manual and not to be afraid to mess with things.

She's been on the mask for like 20 years or something.

NP's rock!

[Thellra]

I'm pretty sure it took me 45 minutes or more to fall asleep during which time I was just getting more and more angry at my mask (2 days in and I miss sleeping on my face so freakin bad) and I'm pretty sure that my manual breathing of trying to breath normally, made the machine ramp up to 14 CM.

Would it be a bad idea to ask my primary care to lower the upper bound of the APAP? or should I just work on not breathing like a dork while I am attempting to fall asleep.

6:47 with the mask on last night! (Wife spent an hour convincing me I needed to put it back on, Don't remember it at all)

[jweeks]

Hi,

Is the first 45 minutes of the graph when you were trying to fall asleep? If so, you can ignore the events that happen there. Funny thing about humans is that while they breathe in a very regular pattern when sleeping, your breathing pattern gets really unstable when you are awake. Those events, especially the blue ones, are just your brain making your breathe in an irregular pattern. After the first 45 minutes, you smoothed out and stopped having events. The AHI there is falsely reported very high because it is a moving average, and it is still including your awake time in the AHI number.

After you got to sleep, you did pretty well. You probably want to run this way for a week to 10 days to let your muscles adapt to the pressure. Your body will get more used to it, and the AHI will change. It might get better, or it might get worse. But let yourself adapt a bit, and let it settle out before starting to tweak. Another funny thing about CPAP is that the effect lasts for about 3 days. That doesn't make sense, but I personally experienced it when I needed to go off of CPAP for a test about a year ago. It took 3 days for my sleep disturbances to gradually return. Same thing happens when you make a change in pressure--it takes a few days for it to take full effect.

I suspect that you will find the auto adjusting stuff to work pretty good based on what your data looks like here.

-john-

[jencat824]

Hang in there, it will get easier to fall asleep & keep the mask on. The keeping it on part will go better with your wife's intervention.

As for sleeping face down, I assume you mean on your stomach? My hubby is a stomach sleeper & has been on CPAP just over a year & doing great. He uses a soft pillow & scrunches it so that he has room for the mask, breathing etc. I've been on CPAP 14 years & am a side sleeper so didn't think about the 'how to do that' until my hubby's first & only excuse was that he couldn't sleep on his side or back. We figured it out together.

Jen

[jencat824]

Hang in there, it will get easier to fall asleep & keep the mask on. The keeping it on part will go better with your wife's intervention.

As for sleeping face down, I assume you mean on your stomach? My hubby is a stomach sleeper & has been on CPAP just over a year & doing great. He uses a soft pillow & scrunches it so that he has room for the mask, breathing etc. I've been on CPAP 14 years & am a side sleeper so didn't think about the 'how to do that' until my hubby's first & only excuse was that he couldn't sleep on his side or back. We figured it out together.

Jen

[DEXSUZ]

Thellra:

You might want to give this a try:

This is a the four-step program I devised. I had a tremendous sleep study at the local krankenhaus but - like many - ran into a granite roadblock as I attempted to get accustomed to masks on my own.

My main advice is to back away from immediately trying to do all-nighters with your CPAP equipment. Use my four-step weekly plan WHICH WORKED WONDERFULLY for me:

1) During the first week sit, watch TV, or read with your equipment whirring away next to you. Get accustomed to the sounds, feelings of the moving air, and all the external trappings of the great chance at quality sleep you are nearing. Do NOT go to bed with the equipment.

2) Take the phone off the hook, draw the shades, evict everyone from the house, don't think about any nearby clock, and loosen your clothing as you lie on your bed in mid-afternoon. Turn on the CPAP gizmo, put the mask on your face, and close your eyes. Think peaceful thoughts, whatever they are to you. At some point in the week you WILL fall asleep. After you have this nap, you'll be amazed at what a refreshing experience it was.

3) During the third week have all your CPAP gear ready for action as you go to bed for the night. As you've done so many times throughout the years, you'll awaken far before morning. When you do, slap the mask on your face and turn on the CPAP gear before your groggy brain has any idea what's going on.

4) After successfully completing the first three steps at your pace, decide on a night (mine was March 3rd) when you have full confidence and will retire for the night WITH your mask on. You'll succeed!

My biggest mistake was expecting everything to go perfectly from the first night. One must be patient and keep anxiety as far away as possible. Come March 3rd, I plan on some sort of goofy celebration to mark one year of refreshing sleep I never had - over four decades - before last year.

Best of luck and God bless.

[Thellra]

I'll have to give that a shot if I need to but last night was night 3, and I made it 7:46 minutes!

What I did to get used to it much faster is having my wife talk to me about her day as we were laying down so I could adjust to the pressure without noticing it!

[poorflick]

My advice is only one step. Put the mask on and try to fall asleep. Its not like you can screw up your sleep any more than it already is. It really can be a pain at times though. About every 3 months i go through a "i hate cpap" phase that lasts a couple of days. Not that i ever "love" it...but it's tolerable. I suspect you will get use to it. Just don't give up!

[Thellra]

Freakin CPAP, I just woke up hyperventilating covered in sweat having the worst nightmare I've had in many years!

Oh wait, nightmare or not that was the first dream I've had in years!!!




(Full Disclosure the 2nd and 1st paragraph were written well apart from eachother!