Ready to give up after 1 week

Hi all,

I am new to this group and hope to find some answers to my problem.
A few weeks back I was diagnosed and started last week with a hired apap that I can use for 4 weeks to try.
Well, since day one I've been feeling exhausted. It's been getting worse every day, headaches, exhaustion, light headed, dizziness, pressure in my head
until yesterday I decided I had enough. I nearly caused a car accident on the way home from work because I can't concentrate anymore and feel exhausted.
So today my first day without and I had a better sleep and my overall condition has improved but still I'm dizzy at times and have that head pressure which can be scary.
I'm going to see my doctor but in the meantime I was wondering if any of you had these experiences too.
Regards,
Nico***

I have the same exact symptoms you do before cpap, and haven't been able to work in over a year.. Diagnosed with sleep apnea started cpap almost 2 months ago.....all the previous symptoms have gotten worse. With help of the folks here been trying to find a solution and I just keep on cpaping and hope it gets better...I'm stubborn ( Taurus) so I keep trying......

There are lots of knowledgeable people here that may be able to help but they will need some information from you before they can render advice

It's the first time I've come across someone describing my exact symptoms...
Good luck...

I felt like that after my first sleep test! I was fearful about what might happen if I had to be hooked up to a bleeping machine every night.

There is a good chance that the settings on your machine are "One-size-fits-all", meaning that they are nowhere close to the best settings for YOU.

Please tell us a little more about your
Machine
Settings
Mask


If your machine has an SD card, or an SD card slot, you can get detailed information off the machine that will help others to help you.

Don't give up yet - you have found the forum - that is a good thing.

Nico.B wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:41 am

Hi all,

I am new to this group and hope to find some answers to my problem.
A few weeks back I was diagnosed and started last week with a hired apap that I can use for 4 weeks to try.
Well, since day one I've been feeling exhausted. It's been getting worse every day, headaches, exhaustion, light headed, dizziness, pressure in my head
until yesterday I decided I had enough. I nearly caused a car accident on the way home from work because I can't concentrate anymore and feel exhausted.
So today my first day without and I had a better sleep and my overall condition has improved but still I'm dizzy at times and have that head pressure which can be scary.
I'm going to see my doctor but in the meantime I was wondering if any of you had these experiences too.
Regards,
Nico***

welcome to the zoo! it's quite possible that the settings on your machine aren't quite where they need to be. can you tell us what your minimum and maximum settings are?

one of the "things" about cpap is that we are each different in what our needs are to combat sleep apnea. so there are no real pat answers. the experts here (*I* am not one!) are going to need more info from you in order to tailor their responses to your needs. otherwise, it will just be guesswork.

if you have the time and inclination, please see the links at the bottom of my post.

good luck!

Hi,
thank you for responding to my post.
I installed this Philips app called dream mapper on my phone and uploaded a few screenshots of the second best result I've had. That was last week on Wednesday.
I have tried theNasal N20 classic resmed mask but I was lying awake for around 3 hours before I changed back to the Airfit P10 resmed.
Somehow I think that there could be something else going on with me. I have similar problems when I look at a computer screen or tv screen for a long time. Seems
to be worse when I do in the morning when I get out of bed. Only it's very little. I could get this pressure in my head and feel a bit dizzy but it's very minor.
Using the cpap made it like xxxx times worse. Because I still feel the effects today I am scared that using the cpap for a long time could do some permanent damage.
I feel I want to go back to before I started before I try again. Does that makes sense?
Only other thing that may be of interest is that since more than 10 years now, I sleep using earplugs. Obviously that is because I am a very light sleeper.
I don't know what other information can be of any use so please tell me.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Regards, Nico***

Nico.B wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 14, 2019 7:00 pm

Hi,
thank you for responding to my post.

your minimum pressure of 4 is too low and needs to be raised, at least to 7.

the app that you have won't give enough detail so that the experts here can help. when you have time, download the sleepyhead software.

also read the post for newbies. both are linked at the bottom of my post.

once we get some solid info from you, you can start improving your cpap experience.

Your AHI is very high because of your minimum pressure setting which is the default setting, causing you to surely feel like crap. You need more baseline pressure to keep the airway open and prevent the bulk of events from occurring in the first place. It's hard to tell what to put the min at without SleepyHead detailed graphs, but usually it's suggested 6-7 min just to start and go from there.

Forgive a noob question, but would an auto sensing machine not automatically raise the pressure in response to events, thus effectively making the basal rate higher? I thought that was the whole point of APAP's, is that the machine did a lot of that work. Or does it raise the pressure only until the events are under control and then drop back to the basal pressure?

gocamels wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 14, 2019 8:07 pm

Forgive a noob question, but would an auto sensing machine not automatically raise the pressure in response to events, thus effectively making the basal rate higher? I thought that was the whole point of APAP's, is that the machine did a lot of that work. Or does it raise the pressure only until the events are under control and then drop back to the basal pressure?

The problem with auto adjusting machines is that they don't/can't respond with more pressure in the blink of an eye when they sense the airway trying to collapse....and once the airway is actually closed off they do nothing until the airway opens back up and then the machine uses its internal algorithm to evaluate what happened and how often and what else might be going on (snores and flow limitations are also a driving force for pressure changes so its not just OAs and hyponeas) and then it decides to increase the pressure and it takes several minutes to go up (and several minutes to back down) and when the starting pressure is too low like the 4 cm minimum these machines often get set at...simply takes too long for the machine to get to where it needs to be to better prevent the airway from ever collapsing in the first place.
And none of these machines will respond to clear airway/central apneas anyway.

That 4 cm minimum might work just fine if a person only need maybe 6 cm to hold the airway open...doesn't work go great if maybe a person needs 10 cm or more. Simply takes too long to get to 10 or higher and the airway closes and opens back up while the machine is trying to climb. So we have to give it a better head start...so it doesn't take so long to get to where it needs to be to hold the airway open optimally. These machines work best by preventing the collapse in the first place and not trying to fix them after they happen.

Then we add in the fact that between the 2 main brands...ResMed and Respironics...the Respironics brand auto adjusting algorithm is simply slower than ResMed's. I need a minimum pressure of 7 cm with my ResMed to keep my airway open for the most part...when I was using the Respironics auto adjusting machine I had to use 10 cm minimum to give me essentially the same results as I get with the ResMed now. So often people using Respironics auto adjusting machines in auto mode end up having to use even more minimum...
It's very rare for a Respironics user to be able to get adequate results with a 4 cm minimum....now with ResMed it can happen more often but even it has to have a good starting point....I need 7 cm with my current ResMed AirSense 10 AutoSet.
If I tried to use 4 cm....I would run into trouble because I spend a good bit of the night up around 10 to 12 and sometimes see 16 cm...too many OAs would happen while the machine was trying to go where it needs to go...so I give it a better head start and then I sit back and let it do its job.

Auto machines aren't magic, they just respond to things, and that takes time, plus, after events stop, the machines start dropping the pressure back down, basically "well, I was programmed for a min pressure of x, I'll get back to what I was programmed to", and that causes a repeating cycle of event, pressure raise, pressure drop, event, pressure raise... etc all night long.

The min pressure needs to be high enough to prevent the majority of events outright, and let the auto function handle the exceptions.

As to the responsiveness of respironics vs resmed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzCCgNLya_g

Your AHI is high. It is as high as some untreated patients! That's why you feel horrible. Please raise your pressure as previous posters suggested.

I agree with those who say your minimum pressure needs to be raised.

The settings on your machine are the default settings for Dreamstation out of the box (min 4, max 20) So whoever set you up and got you started did not do anything to personalize it for your needs.

But hang in there, the very knowledgeable people in the forum will help you tweak the settings. You can download the Users Guide for the Dreamstation, which will give you the instructions for how to change settings. You need to get into the clinican settings, which is blocked unless you know how to go into it. This forum is wonderful for educating people on how to take charge of their therapy.

I have the Users Guide, but can someone provide a link for the OP please?