I'm brand new to this and scared.

And try not to sleep on your back - it causes more apnea events and your mouth is more likely to open up, causing dryness.

By the way, is it possible that, whether or not you have apnea (I'm not questioning the diagnosis) that you in fact also have insomnia, which would explain the sleep meds?

ME TOO! Just got machine today and I don't know if I can do this! My lungs hurt and I feel like I'm suffocating. I don't think I can breathe through my nose all night. I'm stressed out. What should I do? I really feel like I'm drowning.

The way it was explained to me by the sleep clinic is that apnea can set up kind of a vicious cycle where you aren't sleeping very well and so you don't want to go to sleep and don't like to sleep because it's unpleasant to you. In that way sleep apnea leads to insomnia. You can also have it for years and not know that it is going on.

Yes, I'm kind of a newbie on all this and I admit it is a scary and overwhelming and I was initially against the whole damn thing, was angry at my doctor for referring me, and didn't want to go thru all this stuff (okay I STILL do not want to take all these tests).
So very very gradually I am coming around. I actually told the sleep clinic at some point that I had a bad attitude about all this. LOL
It has gotten better.

I can't help with the problems, so just thought I'd come and commiserate.

Newbiecowboy wrote:ME TOO! Just got machine today and I don't know if I can do this! My lungs hurt and I feel like I'm suffocating. I don't think I can breathe through my nose all night. I'm stressed out. What should I do? I really feel like I'm drowning.

Cowboys are tough. Don't let that little blower buck you off. Keep getting back on and hang on.

Register as a member of the forum. List your equipment and settings in your profile. If you have a data-capable machine, get the Sleepyhead software and study your data.


Den

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Julie wrote:And try not to sleep on your back - it causes more apnea events and your mouth is more likely to open up, causing dryness.

By the way, is it possible that, whether or not you have apnea (I'm not questioning the diagnosis) that you in fact also have insomnia, which would explain the sleep meds?

I haven't been diagnosed with insomnia.

I'm still working on it, but right now am finding it hard to identify my humidifier. After my first night's sleep on the device, the best I can say is that I broke even (I think.) I think i got about 5-6 hours sleep, but woke up around 5:30, and noticed I knocked my nose pillow off at some point. Events per hour was around 3.1. I put the nose pillow back in, and wasn't able to go back to sleep. Events per hour was 2.3 I'm not sure if that's an improvement or not. I feel about the same as i did yesterday, and I'm still having the dizzy spells when lying down, thought not as constant. I wish this device could only record me while I sleep, so I can tell how much sleep I'm actually getting. I was concerned about dry nose, mouth,and adjusted the humidifier, but apparently, that wasn't an issue, so tonight, i may turn it up a little. The air coming out can be cold.

BTW, I don't know but I don't find "male socialization techniques" to be esp helpful in this (actually in nothing but that's quite another subject). It's alright to get mad, to be upset, even to cry (I notice cowboy changed his name to protoge, but even cowboys sing the blues). I have been happy none of my friends told me that I had no right to unhappy, scared or other kind of feelings about this). BTW, there is a nice little article in the top section re: acceptance "Dealing with Change". It's kind of from a religious pov but it doesn't matter really, it goes thru this using Kubler-Ross' stages of grief. Might be helpful to you as a newbie.

It seems a lot more likely that the dizziness is from your meds, but it also might be related to Cpap if you're inadvertently covering the CO2 vent holes with bedding - you don't want to do that and rebreathe CO2 which can have a disorienting effect.

this started before i started cpap, so you could be right- I am being mindful not to cover up the airflow.

By the way, is there a place where i can find out what the events per hour number means to me?

The events per hour means you had apneas that often - whether or not they were intercepted by Cpap. Does this answer your question (which I found a bit hard to understand as it seems self explanatory)? Are you using Sleepyhead to track things overnight?

Weakness and dizziness, especially in the morning when I got up, was a symptom of SA for me. Along with irregular heart beat when I laid down to sleep, they all stopped when my apnea was controlled.
I don't think you ever said which machine you have for sure but if it is data capable you can learn about and download Sleepyhead from here. https://sleep.tnet.com/resources/sleepyhead

Julie wrote:The events per hour means you had apneas that often - whether or not they were intercepted by Cpap. Does this answer your question (which I found a bit hard to understand as it seems self explanatory)? Are you using Sleepyhead to track things overnight?

I'm not sure what that is, actually.

My understanding is that the events are episodes where you stop or slow down in breathing very significantly. 5 or so an hour is actually normal. If you have more than 10 per hour I believe it still is somewhat of a problem and the more the worse it is obviously.

Sleepyhead is a freeware software that you can download and use if your machine has a card reader. It will analyze your sleep and apneas and machine use. So you can figure out if your mask is leaking, if you are still snoring, how many apnea events you are having and so on. So you can tell how well the machine is working for you. You can only use if the machine has a data reader. They do not all have this capacity.

Protege wrote:By the way, is there a place where i can find out what the events per hour number means to me?

SH's a free software program you can download from the forum and it shows you every a.m. (or less often - up to you) the diff. factors that take place overnite, like leak rate, pressure levels (not the settings, but where pressures actually rose to), etc. etc. When you can see those - we'll help you set up and interpret - then you can tell if e.g. you need to raise your min. pressure setting a bit, maybe consider a diff. type of mask based on leaks, etc. But you need to tell us what machine & model you have because not every one (there are so many) works with SH.