New here and still tired. Please help.

Hi. I learned about this site from a response on a blog I write. I wrote about my struggles with my fatigue--even with my new CPAP machine:

http://www.curetoday.com/community/barb ... t-quitting
http://www.curetoday.com/community/barb ... -quitting
Thought my fatigue was cancer treatment related (breast cancer five years ago, melanoma a little over one year ago). After lots of blood work, got sent to a sleep study in September and now have a CPAP.

I stop breathing 20 times per hour. I've used my CPAP for over 2 months and I have noticed no difference in my fatigue. Suggestions? Thank you!

MinnesotaBarb wrote:Hi. I learned about this site from a response on a blog I write. I wrote about my struggles with my fatigue--even with my new CPAP machine:

http://www.curetoday.com/community/barb ... t-quitting
http://www.curetoday.com/community/barb ... -quitting
Thought my fatigue was cancer treatment related (breast cancer five years ago, melanoma a little over one year ago). After lots of blood work, got sent to a sleep study in September and now have a CPAP.

I stop breathing 20 times per hour. I've used my CPAP for over 2 months and I have noticed no difference in my fatigue. Suggestions? Thank you!

Please fill out your profile with the exact equipment and settings you use.

If you have a data-capable machine, are you using software to monitor your therapy?


Den

.

Welcome to the forum. Sounds like you've had enough going on to make anyone feel sub par. Hopefully effective CPAP treatment with its accompanying proper oxygenation and more sustained sleep stages will give your body an edge toward better health and feeling the results. Looking forward to you supplying the information requested so some of the minds here can help you ascertain that your treatment is indeed effective. Again, welcome.

The best thing to do now is to optimize your CPAP therapy. Hopefully your CPAP is Sleepyhead compatible. That is software that will allow you to see how well your therapy is doing. Good news is that there are several people on this board who can tell you how to improve it.

Software is free. You can get good info on how to use it. Then you can post your results and people here will help you by making suggestions on how to improve your therapy.

There are many things that could be happening that could make your sleep quality poor. First things first. Maximize the effectiveness of your therapy. Once that has been resolved then you can look at improving sleep quality by improving sleep hygiene and comfort settings on your machine.

Best of Luck!

MinnesotaBarb wrote: I've used my CPAP for over 2 months and I have noticed no difference in my fatigue.

Do you know how to read the data on your machine's display? For a typical night, can you tell us the AHI, leak level and pressure?

Please add your machine info to the Equipment Profile. We need to see if your machine is what is known as "fully data-capable".

MinnesotaBarb wrote:I stop breathing 20 times per hour.

Do you have a copy of the summary of your sleep study? It's better if we have a more complete description of your diagnosis.

The first step to helping you is to understand your situation better. The second step is to make sure your CPAP therapy is highly effective.

There is lots of good help on the forum - thousands of man-years of experience with CPAP and solving problems.

I just looked at your blog and saw you said you are stopping breathing 7 times per hour (AHI) with CPAP treatment.

When I have a night with AHI of 4.0 or higher, I feel sluggish and fatigued the next day. This will vary from person to person, but I feel energetic if my AHI is 2.0 or lower.

You don't mention your leak level. If your leak is high, the machine may be understating your AHI.

So, with some tweaking you should be able to get a better CPAP therapy and your energy level might improve greatly. Lots of possibilities for your improvement!!!