Trying it again

Other than I need to change PCPs, I have decided to try my CPAP again.

It's been 2 nights now and it is not going well.

I manage to get to sleep in a half side, half stomach kinda way, but then I toss and turn a lot, end up on my back and wake up. This has happened these last 2 nights and I have ended up taking the mask off after about 5 hours, rolling over on my stomach, and actually getting a bit of crappy sleep without tossing and turning.

It is aggravating my neck and arm again, though nothing approaching the acute stage (yet) and I am not seeing any benefit from the attempts (yet).

I'm just not sure a) that I'm doing the right thing, and b) that CPAP is even the right thing. I will be grilling the ENT about UARS next week and I have contacted the sleep clinic to see if they have any further testing available.

I'm trying to recall your situation. Do you have a back injury that interferes with your sleep position?

Are you able to do some light exercises during the day to limber up and stretch out the neck muscles?

Could you or someone massage your neck and shoulder muscles to give you some relief?

Once you find a sleeping position that works for you, and once your mind has adjusted to the new sensations and accepts them as your new normal, and once you are getting adequate hours of decent sleep on a regular basic, THEN you can reasonably expect an appreciable difference. Until then there are likely no benefits to be had other than knowing you have more time invested into the adjustment effort that will hopefully get you where you're trying to go. Are there any identifiable issues with the treatment that can be addressed or is it a generalized trouble sleeping? Have you already assessed any meds for known problems with sleep?

Cpapian wrote:I'm trying to recall your situation. Do you have a back injury that interferes with your sleep position?

Are you able to do some light exercises during the day to limber up and stretch out the neck muscles?

Could you or someone massage your neck and shoulder muscles to give you some relief?

I herniated C5-C6 disk (7 days after starting CPAP - probably caused by shifting sleep position) and it pinches my nerve for my right arm. Neck pain isn't a big deal, but arm and shoulder pain are.

I stretch my neck during the day and can get a massage at night. I will also be starting PT in a week or so.

I plan to keep trying CPAP unless it appears my neck will become acute again.

kteague wrote:Are there any identifiable issues with the treatment that can be addressed or is it a generalized trouble sleeping? Have you already assessed any meds for known problems with sleep?

The few meds I take have been ruled out, and I fall asleep very quickly. I'm sure it's a comfort issue - if I'm not on my stomach, I'm not very comfortable (apparently, since I always end up back there). Plus, now that my neck is crewed up, that further limits what constitutes a comfortable position.

xxyzx wrote:
sleep on your back

sleeping on your stomach is what damaged your neck not the cpap

Did you skip that part where I said "I end up on my back and wake up"?

And none of us knows if there is any damage caused by anything long term. I did not have neck problems before, my neck got injured 7 days after starting CPAP, and trying CPAP again now aggravates the EXACT same area. Evidence points to the CPAP causing the injury (because of a change in sleeping position).

what Xxyetc said... sleeping on you back will definitely help, and with the cpap machine if it is set high enough you shouldn't even snore on your back so you'll no longer have that issue.

nicholasjh wrote:what Xxyetc said... sleeping on you back will definitely help, and with the cpap machine if it is set high enough you shouldn't even snore on your back so you'll no longer have that issue.

OK, why aren't I getting through to some of you? If I end up on my back for any significant time, apparently I wake up because it is not a comfortable position to sleep in. I have no control over whether being on back wakes me up or not.

So instead of laying there wide awake, I roll over and go to sleep. What am I supposed to do, lay there all night and get even less sleep?

Your situation is very tough. From reading other threads and especially Pugsy's take on all this, I think getting a firmer diagnosis is the right way to go. In the end, IF it is determined that CPAP is your treatment, you may have to find a way to force yourself to change sleeping position. Easy? Gosh no. Trust me, I know.

You one time equated this to losing weight. I have a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy and am 90-95% wheelchair bound. In 2015, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. For two days, I was angry with the world and refused to do anything about it, using every excuse in the book. But the thought of losing a foot to complications made me take control. Without being able to exercise AT ALL, I have lost over 100 pounds in 2 years. Easy? Hell no. It was HARD as hell. But I did it. And in so doing, the Diabetes is so reduced that I don't test at Diabetic levels anymore.

IF, and I mean IF, it comes down to they find you need CPAP, you may need to adjust your thinking a bit and instead of saying why you can't do it, make up your mind that you will find a way to do it.

And - ignore xxyzx - he's just a very nasty, miserable person. Put him on your foe list.

Madalot wrote:Your situation is very tough. From reading other threads and especially Pugsy's take on all this, I think getting a firmer diagnosis is the right way to go. In the end, IF it is determined that CPAP is your treatment, you may have to find a way to force yourself to change sleeping position. Easy? Gosh no. Trust me, I know.

You one time equated this to losing weight. I have a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy and am 90-95% wheelchair bound. In 2015, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. For two days, I was angry with the world and refused to do anything about it, using every excuse in the book. But the thought of losing a foot to complications made me take control. Without being able to exercise AT ALL, I have lost over 100 pounds in 2 years. Easy? Hell no. It was HARD as hell. But I did it. And in so doing, the Diabetes is so reduced that I don't test at Diabetic levels anymore.

IF, and I mean IF, it comes down to they find you need CPAP, you may need to adjust your thinking a bit and instead of saying why you can't do it, make up your mind that you will find a way to do it.

And - ignore xxyzx - he's just a very nasty, miserable person. Put him on your foe list.

Sorry to hear about your woes.

Kudos to you for having an attitude though!

It just seems like I have been fine all my life (other than the long ago treated L4-L5 issue) and then these last 2 years, everything just started going wrong. I have several other issues happen that just don't belong on this forum, as they don't affect my sleep at all, and then I get this sleep trouble.

If the doctor just would have prescribed sleeping pills, I would be blissfully unaware of any trouble and probably would have just died in my sleep some years down the road.

I am waiting to hear from the sleep clinic and then what the ENT says. If I have to have a UPPP I will probably starve to death before I can eat food because I don't have any more than probably 10 lbs of extra weight. (I wear the same size as I did 30 years ago) 30 days without food and I will be a skeleton (and dead).

As far as the CPAP, I am trying it, even though the circumstances aren't ideal. I just figured waiting for PT to finish would be far too long. It's not like the CPAP is making me feel worse (excluding it screwing up my neck), so why not try it as best I can.

xxyzx wrote: you had neck injury just did not feel it until you used the cpap
so of course if it hurts now teh cpap could make it hurt again if you keep twisting your neck to sleep on your stomach

totally illogical to blame the cpap
like blaming the truck driver when the transmission fails and the engine falls out

Only if the truck driver loaded too much weight onto the truck. Sure, the transmission was old, but it was working fine until something came along and overloaded, causing it to fail.

xxyzx wrote:pain or no pain
learn to sleep on your back
adjust the bed or pillows or whatever
get a new mattress if you have too
whatever dood just dont keep insisting you have to sleep on your stomach

clearly sleeping on your stomach is the worse option

It's the best option for falling and staying asleep though. I am so many weeks behind on sleep, I don't have the energy to stay awake on my back when I know I could be unconscious.

If my doctor would give me some good drugs that knocked me out for 8 hours, they would help me fall asleep on my back and if they were really god they would keep me form moving.

xxyzx wrote:you are illogical and stubborn
how much pain do you need to convince you to stop sleeping on your stomach

if you must then buy a massage table so the cpap fits through the hole and your neck wont hurt

I'm afraid I'm quite logical most of the time, but I have been labeled as stubborn before.

And I don't know how anyone could sleep on a surface only about 24" wide like a massage table... that's about the same width as a casket.

MaxINTJ wrote: I am waiting to hear from the sleep clinic and then what the ENT says. If I have to have a UPPP I will probably starve to death before I can eat food because I don't have any more than probably 10 lbs of extra weight. (I wear the same size as I did 30 years ago) 30 days without food and I will be a skeleton (and dead).

Whoa! You don't even have a clear picture of what your needs are yet so major irreversible surgery is the last thought in the world for you to entertain. I would exhaust all 100% non invasive options before even entertaining that discussion, then probably still wouldn't. As to your inclination to stomach sleep, do you think it might help at all to kinda trick the brain by leaning against a pillow in front of your stomach a bit while side sleeping and thus still having the sensation of your stomach being pressed against something? Just a thought.

I don't normally sleep on my back, but I had to for about 3 months after my double mastectomy.
I would have been more comfortable on my side, but it would have had bad effects on the reconstruction.
My impulses pushed me to roll to the side, so I put pillows UNDER the bottom sheet,
where I could not elbow them out of my way. If the will fails--get creative.
I did not let my sleepy self be the boss of me.

I'll chime in here with this. I had a total hysterectomy two years ago. I'm a side-sleeper. I could not sleep on either side for about a week or two after surgery because it caused too much pain in my abdomen (even towels under my stomach to help support it while on my side didn't help). I had to learn to sleep in my back, something I'm not used to doing. Sometimes things happen with our health that force us to do things differently. May be not be easy. May in fact be extremely frustrating and difficult until we get used to the new way of doing things.

MaxINTJ, find out the true cause of your sleeping problems, and then resolve yourself to deal with the treatment needed for what is found. As I've read here, that treatment may or may not involve CPAP. (And I sure wouldn't even consider that surgery you mentioned until everything possible had been considered and tried first. And since you don't know your true problem yet, that surgery may not even be a treatment recommendation.)

Oh, and the suggestion of a massage table someone made? If it's anything like a chiropractic adjustment table, they're so narrow I'd fall right off of that thing as soon as I fell asleep!

As they say, getting old isn't for the weak or faint of heart. I used to complain because as soon as I'd fix or get used to one health problem, another one would pop up. Now, the next problem often doesn't even have the decency to wait for the current one to improve--or for me to get used to it--before it stomps into my life!

MaxINTJ wrote: I don't know how anyone could sleep on a surface only about 24" wide like a massage table

Someone suggested, in one of your other threads, the use of vitrectomy recovery equipment as an alternative to the massage table idea. Just wondering if you explored that. . . Seems like a reasonable strategy to look into until/unless you get your further medical advice about your spine issues, as some pieces are designed to be used on any flat surface (wide beds or the floor included!). Looks like there's plenty of room to accommodate a cpap mask through the head support. Here's a sample photo:


Jean