KittyMom22 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 08, 2022 12:54 pm
Pod153 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 02, 2022 11:35 pm
I am on my second night with CPAP. I have worn it for 6 hours each night. I have slept for only one hour each night. I have taken Benadryl. I cannot sleep, at all. I just lie there feeling like I’m suffocating. I have never had insomnia before.
I think it’s a sensory issue with both the mask and the airflow. My AHI was only 5.4.
Short of a miracle I don’t see how I can continue on CPAP. Only getting a hour of sleep a night will kill me long before an AHI of 5.4 will.
I hear you. Have you tried an oral device yet? I can't believe they made you PAP with 5.4, as 5 is normal.
I'm unfortunately very symptomatic despite the low AHI - I have flow limitations leading to arousals around 60 times an hour, and they think that's why. I seem to be very efficient at waking myself up before my airway properly collapses but it also means I never ever rest. I meet the criteria for OSA, just, which makes getting prescriptions for this stuff easier, but as I understand it I have more in common with someone with a UARS diagnosis than I do with most people with OSA.
Unfortunately where the flow limitations were waking me up before, the CPAP is waking me up now, and it takes me much longer to get back to sleep which is why I'm doing worse than I was without the CPAP. I also realised after I wrote this that it's partly because the airflow is blocking my nose so much that I end up in a vicious cycle where my nose gets more and more blocked and the pressure gets higher and higher to compensate. This seems to happen even with a full face mask, although I get a couple of hours before my nose blocks up rather than ~10 minutes with my original pillows mask.
I was offered an oral device but I also have extremely crooked teeth, so the only options seem to be high-end custom ones which are triple the cost of a CPAP. I've used a semi-custom one before (when I thought I was just a regular snorer) but I ended up having to cut away at the plastic to be able to wear it at all, and in the end it completely screwed up my bite. I am sufficiently desperate that I am now considering dropping an eyewatering amount of money on a custom one now though.
I live in the UK, so my access to various aspects of healthcare may not be quite the same as yours.