Soarness

Hello everyone,

I am a new user to the CPAP machine. I've had my unit for four days now. I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. My machine is set for 15 and I was fitted with the pillows mask. I love to sleep on my stomach. For the last two days I have been waking up with soar muscles in my chest and back shoulders that gets better with being up and moving around. I am wondering if this is due to sleeping on my stomach or it's just that I'm not use to my new sleeping situation? I also seem to hurt when I take deep breaths for the first hour being up? Is this something common and happening to other first week users?

Most likely a little soreness from sleep position because sometimes we sleep sounder or more deeply. Once the machine does its job we don't move around so much. We get a bit stiff.

Also..you use a pressure of 15 cm...Exhaling against that amount of pressure requires some effort...some work from some chest wall muscles which haven't been worked like this before. Those muscles are sore now just like any muscle gets sore from new exercise. Couple of weeks the muscles should be in better shape and no longer be sore.

Welcome to the forum Kimberly! Some of the soreness is most likely due to sleeping in positions that are not quite the same as before, and some from the fact that we sleep better and don't move as much during the night. Of course almost everyone complains, in the beginning, of some soreness when breathing especially in the a.m.. With time you will get used to the new sleep positions and the soreness with breathing will go away. Some will adjust to the morning stiffness that comes from not moving around and some of us(I have arthritis) will just deal with it, because breathing while we sleep is just that good.

Brenda