More tired using BIPAP

No one thing is outstanding and your AHI's low, but when's the last time you had an overall check up with labwork etc, for thyroid, glucose, Vit D, hormones, etc. etc? Not everything's about OSA.

How many hours of sleep (and using the machine) are you averaging each night?
This last report is just shy of 6 hours. Other than the rather short hours of sleep the report is unremarkable.

Do you take any medications of any kind? If so, what are they?

Do you have any other health issues mental or physical that could impact energy levels during the day? Pain? Arthritis? Depression? etc.....

Can you please clarify....you mention "tired"....is this fatigue/lack of energy or are you experiencing drowsiness/sleepy feeling?
Often "tired" is used to cover multiple symptoms and not always per the medical definition.

I feel drowsily like I never can quite wake up. I wake up after about 6 hrs of sleep and get up to go to bathroom and leave it of. If I use it more than that I feel worse. I feel like I never go into a deep sleep. I don't guess Sleepyhead will show that.

I did have a physical, blood work, etc in December and everything is fine. I do have anxiety after I've had a really bad night on my cpap because I think It should be working better by now. Some days I feel ok but have more days I feel like a zombi

Do you take any medications?

How many hours using the machine are you averaging?

6 hours isn't enough...I skimmed through this thread and saw you were going back to sleep without the mask...that's bad but I gathered you quit doing that and now just stay up???? Is that correct?

Unfortunately the machine doesn't have any way to tell us how "good" or "bad" our sleep quality is. Heck, they can't even tell if we are awake or asleep. What we can look for are things that could point to poor sleep (like the AHI, FLs, RERAs) and if we see them then we have something that could be a factor but the absence of those events doesn't mean the sleep quality was all that great.

How many awakenings during the night do you remember? We all wake up on occasion but we don't always remember waking up...but if remember waking up often...then there's going to be even more that you don't remember.

Lots of things can impact our sleep quality...meds...hence the question about meds...is something we always look at because lots of meds cause drowsiness.
Hours of sleep is critical...if you aren't getting enough hours of sleep you are going to be drowsy the next day...even without meds messing with things and the sleep being the "best" possible.

There's so much more to feeling those good numbers you see than just getting them. I wish it were that easy.
Getting a good AHI report and clean report....doesn't guarantee that we feel on top of the world. Some lucky people ...yeah...they get the miracle but most of us (myself included) it takes a lot longer and the improvement is so gradual it is almost imperceptible.

So...any meds that might be playing a part?
and how many hours are you averaging?

Without having to read back through your history and posts, I'm curious as to why you're using bilevel therapy.
Was it aerophagia or something else? ( Since your pressures are pretty low. )
Have you tried using straight IPAP and EPAP? ( no PS )
I see some pressure changes in your IPAP line.......do you have any sense of being awakened during the night?


Den

.

My doctor put me on bipap, I have tried Cpap years ago but was having trouble with hyperventilating. Haven't tried anything else. I don't really feel like I am awake during night. Just once or twice to adjust hose or mask.

Sleepyv wrote:I feel drowsily like I never can quite wake up. I wake up after about 6 hrs of sleep and get up to go to bathroom and leave it of.

Do you go back to sleep without the mask on? If so, how long do you sleep without the mask?

If I use it more than that I feel worse.

Please be more specific: In what sense do you feel worse if you use the mask for more than 6 hours?

Do you wake up with a dry throat? Sore nose? Air in the stomach?

Or are you just more tired after getting an hour or two more of sleep with the CPAP on your face that you are if you just get up with 6 hours of sleep?

I feel like I never go into a deep sleep. I don't guess Sleepyhead will show that.

Your machine cannot track what sleep stage you are in. So SH data cannot definitively show how much Stage I, II, III or REM sleep you get each night.

Why do you think you never get into a "deep sleep"? And what do you mean by "deep sleep"? Do you mean REM? Or do you mean Stage III (slow wave sleep)? Most people get the bulk of their Stage III sleep during the first two or three full sleep cycles during the night. Most people get the bulk of their REM sleep during the last two or three sleep cycles during the night.

If you are sleeping only six hours, you are probably only getting 4 full sleep cycles. You may need 7.5 hours of sleep to feel better.

I do have anxiety after I've had a really bad night on my cpap because I think It should be working better by now.

Define what you mean by a "really bad night on your cpap" please. Do you mean the AHI is higher than you want? (How high is "too high"?) Or do you mean you remember tossing and turning all night long and not getting very much sleep in spite of using the CPAP? Or something else?

Some days I feel ok but have more days I feel like a zombi

It's important to NOT let the data drive how you feel.

What I mean by that is this: Some people look at the AHI data as soon as they get up each morning. And if they see an AHI that is higher than they want it to be, they immediately start thinking to themselves, "The AHI is way too high, so it was a bad night for the CPAP, and I'm going to feel it today." And that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: In other words, as the day goes on, the anxiety induced by knowing the AHI was above 3.0 is magnified by every little normal bump during the day: You get tired and you blame it on the AHI instead of the fact that you had a very stressful morning at work. You can't concentrate on something, and you blame the concentration problems on the AHI instead of just the usual day-to-day stress affecting your ability to concentrate. And so and so forth.

Since you feel "ok" some days, but you feel like a zombi on other days, it may be time to keep a log. I'd suggest not looking at the AHI data until the end of the day for a couple of weeks however. That way you'll know the "ok" days and the "zombi" days are not being influenced by your knowledge of what the AHI was the night before.

You could keep the log either on paper or in an Excel spreadsheet. It doesn't need to be complicated. Just track a few things that you know make you feel better or worse each day. One variable can be "Feel like a zombi". After a couple of weeks of data, you will have a better idea as to whether there is any correlation between the CPAP data and the "feel like a zombi" data. You may also have some data that shows you the relative proportion of "ok" days to "zombi" days is higher than you expect. CPAP is a journey, and one of the early indicators that it is doing some positive good is that the number of "ok" days starts to catch up to the number of "zombi" days. Eventually the "ok" days start to out number the number of "zombi" days. At first, they may not outnumber them by much. But with time, the "zombi" days should become much rarer, even if they never disappear completely.

Make sure you have auto bipap not fixed. I made that mistake and my breathing would not match up with machine. Auto bipap takes care of that. Good luck