Newbie and feel half awake while using CPAP

Hello,

New to this board. Hoping to find some advice. I have had mild sleep apnea for years. 46 years old now. I am primarily a mouth breather. Have one nostril almost fully blocked and the other partially blocked. ENT wants to operate, but I don’t really like operations.

I have the ResMed AirSense 10 AutoSet

I am using the AirFit 30 which primarily covers the mouth with a bit that fits under the nose.

My sleep study shows only 6% REM sleep without CPAP and about 12% with. So far below the 20% plus and adult should have. I can’t remember the AHI, but it was in the Mild range.

I have made several attempts to use CPAP over the years. Never made it more than a month. Just don’t like it and have not had much success.

So I am trying again. I have been waking up every night several times and always at 2:30ish and 5:30ish. I used to sleep right until 8 or so. I have added extra curtains, eye mask and ear plugs to block out anything that could add to the wake ups.
Getting to bed early is a challenge. Young kids and a wife in night school makes before 11pm hard and many nights is 12 or 12:30. Going to try harder to make it 10.

Anyways. When I use the CPAP I feel Half awake. Like I am asleep, but keep waking to notice that I am using the CPAP.
Don’t know how else to describe it.
First night I used it 5 hours and had a 2.5 AHI approx
Second night it was 7 hours with a 3.5 AHI
Third night last night 5 hours and 4.3 AH

So I guess I just keep plugging away for a few weeks and collect more data perhaps. Someone mentioned taking a look at the data more in another thread I read. Perhaps that is the next thing to look into. But curious about the sleep-wake feeling while using cpap

Any thoughts?
Thanks
Daniel

You aren't sleeping soundly with cpap yet...as to why we don't know yet but it could be something as simple as the brain just not yet accepting the alien being stuck on your face blowing air up your nose and in your mouth. Let's face it...it's not normal...it's just plain weird and the brain has yet to come to terms with the fact that the mask is it's new best friend.

I had what you are having for about 3 months. My brain would wake me up a gazillion times a night to tell me "hey dude, do you know you have an alien on your face"...over time the brain got used to the alien and the wake ups and half asleep half awake feelings reduced.

Now it is also possible that your machine settings are not yet optimal...and could be a factor in the poor sleep quality which is why looking at the software data can be helpful.

Also...quick question...do you take any medications of any kind? If so, what?

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 08, 2020 8:03 am

You aren't sleeping soundly with cpap yet...as to why we don't know yet but it could be something as simple as the brain just not yet accepting the alien being stuck on your face blowing air up your nose and in your mouth. Let's face it...it's not normal...it's just plain weird and the brain has yet to come to terms with the fact that the mask is it's new best friend.

I had what you are having for about 3 months. My brain would wake me up a gazillion times a night to tell me "hey dude, do you know you have an alien on your face"...over time the brain got used to the alien and the wake ups and half asleep half awake feelings reduced.

Now it is also possible that your machine settings are not yet optimal...and could be a factor in the poor sleep quality which is why looking at the software data can be helpful.

Also...quick question...do you take any medications of any kind? If so, what?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Yes I take a few meds. At night A small dose of Serequil which is supposed to make you drowsy. Lyrica which also has sedation effects. And a cholesterol drug.
Some blood pressure meds in the morning. I don’t think they are causing my sleep issues. I have had the apnea for years. Those meds for a year or 2. The worsening of the sleep symptoms is new. Maybe apnea is worse. I thought the 5:30 wake up could be due to light as that is sunrise now. So I got darker curtains and use an eye mask. Nada effect.

I am just getting ready for night number 4. Might be time for another sleep study as the last one was maybe 2 years ago. So maybe you are on to something about needing new settings, although the AirSense autoset does pick a range and a number setting on its own I think.

Lyrica also has a less common side effect causing trouble sleeping.

https://www.drugs.com/sfx/lyrica-side-effects.html

trouble sleeping

I know it's weird that a medication with a may cause drowsiness sticker on it can also cause trouble sleeping...but it's more common than you might think.
I take a pain medication during the day with the "may cause drowsiness" sticker but I can't take it at night because it causes insomnia.
Little known side effect in that medication and in less than 1% of the people who take it...and guess who is in that less than 1 %...yep me.. If I take it after 6 PM...I can sleep from maybe 11 PM to around 2 AM and then I am wide awake and cleaning house at 3 AM.
It never has really caused me to be drowsy and actually wires me up a bit.

So your medications might be playing a part in your poor sleep quality...it's a maybe and maybe in combination with all the newness of the cpap stuff it's playing a small part.

Now as to your machine supposed to be auto adjusting and fixing things all by itself...yes up to a point but sometimes the machine needs a little help.
How about we look at the software reports and see if anything stands out that might need improving on to perhaps make things a little better.
OSCAR https://www.sleepfiles.com/OSCAR/
http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.ph ... stallation
http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.ph ... rpretation

and my how to organize thread because I don't want to see all the graphs the machine gives you.
viewtopic/t158560/How-to-post-images-for-review.html

Won't hurt to look.

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 08, 2020 8:03 am

You aren't sleeping soundly with cpap yet...as to why we don't know yet but it could be something as simple as the brain just not yet accepting the alien being stuck on your face blowing air up your nose and in your mouth. Let's face it...it's not normal...it's just plain weird and the brain has yet to come to terms with the fact that the mask is it's new best friend.

I had what you are having for about 3 months. My brain would wake me up a gazillion times a night to tell me "hey dude, do you know you have an alien on your face"...over time the brain got used to the alien and the wake ups and half asleep half awake feelings reduced.

Now it is also possible that your machine settings are not yet optimal...and could be a factor in the poor sleep quality which is why looking at the software data can be helpful.

Also...quick question...do you take any medications of any kind? If so, what?

Thank you for this post. I am on night one and spent an hour or so during the day today trying to get used to the mask, figuring that repetition will make it easier. But when I went to bed, I simply could not stop thinking about the mask, my breathing, what the air felt like, etc. It simply felt like I was getting too much or not enough air, and I was very conscious of every breath. Your post was reassuring that the anxiety I was/am having is just part of the process and that it will pass. But it all feels so foreign, I don’t know how anyone can relax enough to ignore it and go to sleep.

Sorry, I don’t mean to hijack the thread, but Pugsy’s post was the first thing I read that made the process click a bit. I’ll go back to it and keep trying to keep it on longer and longer. But it is alien.

smithc214 wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 10, 2020 12:55 am

Thank you for this post. I am on night one and spent an hour or so during the day today trying to get used to the mask, figuring that repetition will make it easier. But when I went to bed, I simply could not stop thinking about the mask, my breathing, what the air felt like, etc. It simply felt like I was getting too much or not enough air, and I was very conscious of every breath. Your post was reassuring that the anxiety I was/am having is just part of the process and that it will pass. But it all feels so foreign, I don’t know how anyone can relax enough to ignore it and go to sleep.

Welcome to the forum.

What are all your settings? If you feel like you are having problems with air supply...too much or too little that is not uncommon and often we can help relieve that part of the anxiety with a little tweaking of the settings but I need to know what your settings are at the the beginning of the night including if you are using the ramp or not.

Sounds pretty good to me. I always wake up at 3AM, and can't get back to sleep till 7 or so. I am tired as well. And yet, feel so good that I have a cpap and softgear because if I didn't things would be so much worse as my organs would be starving for oxygen even more. I also suffer from restless leg syndrome, oh I can kick like a mule.
It is good you are reaching out, but it might not be the apnea that causes fatigue. I had BONE crushing fatigue, and thought that cpap would take care of it, but life is cruel sometimes, and although there was a moderate bit of improvement, I was still dog tired. Blood test determined I had hypothyroidism, so I was encouraged to think this would help and it did, a little, but 35 years later, I took the meds that got rid of my chronic fatigue, and this time it lasted quite a while, six months . I had energy! Better to have had it than not, so the last 40 years have been kind of down. Not complaining, or at least I hope no one gets that drift. I am grateful, but of course would like to have energy.

Hi Daniel. I can relate to what you're saying about feeling half awake on CPAP. I've been through that myself, lately.
You said you haven't made it for more than a month using CPAP, but a month won't give your body time to get used to it. I'm just a newbie myself, and have been on CPAP for about 3 months. I'm only just starting to feel like I am really "getting used to it" in the last few days. It really does take time. I didn't think I was ever going to get used to it...really genuinely believed, 100%, that I wouldn't...but I can see now that I AM going to fully get used to it. YAY! - (and you will, too).
I'd often thought of asking the question on here, something along the lines of, "Does anyone ever REALLY get used to using a CPAP machine?", but thought it was a bit of a silly question, because no matter what the answer was, it would be something that others probably just take for granted. Hard to explain, but anyway, I really AM getting used to it now. I walked past my bed, yesterday, and for the first time, I thought....It would really be weird if I walked past and that machine wasn't there. How things change!
You say you wake up several times a night.....besides the feeling that you are half awake all the time. I also have this problem. Now that the CPAP is giving me enough oxygen, it's unmasked another problem, which I've learnt on here is called "sleep maintenance insomnia" - trouble staying asleep. At my worst, earlier this year (before CPAP), I was sleeping 16 hours a day, but now I only need 6 hours. Unfortunately, that 6 hours is broken into two parts because of this issue. Can't win, sometimes. With any luck, that isn't your issue, and hopefully, once you're more used to CPAP, you will start sleeping through again. If you don't, just keep in mind that it could be SMI, and then look for answers for what could be causing that. At this stage, though, I think you can assume you are being woken by the whole newness of CPAP treatment and everything that goes with it.
You mention that you might collect data for the next few weeks, but you can actually post the data on here any time...every day if you want to. As Pugsy said, above, you can get Oscar, get the info. onto Oscar from the SD card on your machine, and put it all on here for us to look at! I'll be no help, but Pugsy and some of the other people on here can sort you right out.
Just keep persisting with it, and know that you really WILL get used to it in the end.