New to OSA and CPAP therapy - help!

Enchanter wrote: Interesting. For me, hopefully I'll notice that I no longer feel what I feel.

We all hope that we're going to be in that lucky few who notice things are (much) better right away.

But most of us take some time---as in a few weeks to a couple of months of full time PAPing to start noticing improvements. And many people give up before they've given the CPAP enough time to make a difference. We can't choose how long it takes to start feeling better. But we can choose to wear the mask every night (even when we don't want to put it on) and we can choose to NOT take the mask off when we wake up in the middle of the night (even though we desperately want to take it off and just go back to sleep without it on.) And we can choose to continue working on eliminating the issues we run into with PAP therapy and work towards getting ourselves fully compliant.

If you are diagnosed with OSA and you are put on CPAP, you will need to be patient and not jump to conclusions if you don't notice a difference right away.

robysue wrote:

Enchanter wrote: Interesting. For me, hopefully I'll notice that I no longer feel what I feel.

We all hope that we're going to be in that lucky few who notice things are (much) better right away.

But most of us take some time---as in a few weeks to a couple of months of full time PAPing to start noticing improvements. And many people give up before they've given the CPAP enough time to make a difference. We can't choose how long it takes to start feeling better. But we can choose to wear the mask every night (even when we don't want to put it on) and we can choose to NOT take the mask off when we wake up in the middle of the night (even though we desperately want to take it off and just go back to sleep without it on.) And we can choose to continue working on eliminating the issues we run into with PAP therapy and work towards getting ourselves fully compliant.

If you are diagnosed with OSA and you are put on CPAP, you will need to be patient and not jump to conclusions if you don't notice a difference right away.

My initial attitude is that I'm going to do whatever it takes to wear the mask full time. But I will admit that it was hard wearing it that night at the lab. I started to think it was going to suffocate me. So if I do get diagnosed, which we both think is going to happen, then I'm going to have to do whatever it takes to love that product or at least tolerate it and get used to it. I can see why it can be frustrating to not get better all at once. But if it took time to get damaged, it also can take time to get better.

It's hard to wear the mask all night. I wake up and it's off. I am like how did it get off... I don't really wanna but I strap it back on anyways... Sometimes it makes my nose sore too - it's annoying... and I am still hoping for my happy train to come in too.

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

I think I will start separate threads about both the graphs and the discomfort with the mask, when I work up the motivation to do so.

In this thread, I think I largely want to get input on two things:

1) Do any of you guys have experience with non-CPAP treatments? Positive or negative stories are both useful here. Or anyone who thinks they have insight into what would or would not be helpful, beyond a casual look at the clinical trials.

2) On a gut level I just don't buy the proposition that you have to wear the CPAP every night, all night, before noticing any effect. In fact I'd expect almost the exact opposite: going from *no* restful sleep at all to *some* restful sleep should provide much larger benefits than going from *mostly* restful sleep to *always* restful sleep. Almost everything else seems to work this way. So what is going on here? Many people seem to agree that I'm wrong about this. If you guys can give me some idea why this would be the case, or what I should read to convince me of this, it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks again for your help and thoughts!

SandSurfer wrote:Thanks for the replies, everyone!

I think I will start separate threads about both the graphs and the discomfort with the mask, when I work up the motivation to do so.

In this thread, I think I largely want to get input on two things:

1) Do any of you guys have experience with non-CPAP treatments? Positive or negative stories are both useful here. Or anyone who thinks they have insight into what would or would not be helpful, beyond a casual look at the clinical trials.

2) On a gut level I just don't buy the proposition that you have to wear the CPAP every night, all night, before noticing any effect. In fact I'd expect almost the exact opposite: going from *no* restful sleep at all to *some* restful sleep should provide much larger benefits than going from *mostly* restful sleep to *always* restful sleep. Almost everything else seems to work this way. So what is going on here? Many people seem to agree that I'm wrong about this. If you guys can give me some idea why this would be the case, or what I should read to convince me of this, it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks again for your help and thoughts!

I suggest head on over to apneaboard.com/forums if you'd rather talk about non-cpap therapy for apnea... given that this *is* primarily a cpap help forum..

SandSurfer wrote: 2) On a gut level I just don't buy the proposition that you have to wear the CPAP every night, all night, before noticing any effect. In fact I'd expect almost the exact opposite: going from *no* restful sleep at all to *some* restful sleep should provide much larger benefits than going from *mostly* restful sleep to *always* restful sleep. Almost everything else seems to work this way.

Let's draw some analogies:

Do you think that an insulin-dependent diabetic who only sometimes takes the correct dose of insulin will keep his blood sugar under control? And do you think that the damage caused by the diabetes will be prevented if the person is only sometimes taking his/her insulin?

Do you think that someone with high blood pressure who only sometimes takes their blood pressure medication as directed will have the high blood pressure fully controlled? And do you think the damage caused by the high blood pressure will be prevented if the person is only sometimes taking his/her high blood pressure medication?

Sleep apnea is a chronic condition. It causes damage over the long run. And it takes time to undo the damage that it's done to the body over the years. And when you sleep without the CPAP, it's like the diabetic eating a carb rich meal without taking the appropriate dose of insulin. It probably won't kill you, but it's likely to cause just a bit more damage to the body and it's also not likely to make you feel any better.