New User Exhausted Next Day

For some people it's an overnight miracle.

For some people, they need further tweaking of the pressure.

For some people, even if the pressure is right, their sleep is disturbed for a while, and they're tired until they adjust.

When you have apnea, your body adjusts to it in various ways. When you get CPAP, even if you're now breathing correctly, your body is "out of balance" until you readjust to the new normal.

Hang on, it may get better in a week or two. Even if it doesn't, don't give up. Further adjustments can be made.

I'll run you quickly through my experience, which I would say is probably pretty typical for most new users. Diagnosed in September with an AHI of 37 and O2 desat levels in the 60's. Had been walking around for a decade or more feeling zombie fatigue every day. Never felt rested, no matter how much I slept. Looking back, I was basically disabled. It affected my work life, home life, social life. I planned my days around napping and avoided social commitments because I might be "too tired" to attend, etc. So I was prescribed an APAP with a fixed level of 6.0cm. I stayed on that about a month. The first few days I felt much better, then back to the same. Found this forum, learned about Sleepyhead software, downloaded it, and found out my prescribed settings only lowered my AHI into the mid-20's. No wonder I still felt crappy, I was still having 25 events per hour all night long. This was my first clue that maybe the doctors were clueless and maybe a five-hour snapshot of my sleep in the strange environment of a sleep clinic really didn't give them much to go on as far as adequately determining my optimal treatment level. So I lurked on this forum for a while and finally asked one of the respected members what I should do. I uploaded my Sleepyhead screenshots, and she suggested several tweaks over a period of time. Each time we tweaked the pressure higher, my AHI went down with no rise in Central Apneas. We gave each tweak several days to a week to get an average of results, rather than basing the changes on one random night's results. This went on for about 3 months. Each time I tweaked, I got that AHA feeling of receiving better treatment for a few days. I got some respiratory virus from hell around Christmas that set me back about two weeks. Then got back to work on the settings in January. Early in February I finally hit my sweet spot that gave me consistently good results of 2.0 or less on the AHI every night. The settings I am currently on are APAP in a range of 18.0-20.0cm. So you can see, that is light years from what the sleep doctor, who I never saw in person, thought would work for me. I wonder how many doctor appts. and adjustments it would have taken to get there, and if I would have given up having to go through all that trouble and frustration?

So here I am six months later, having enjoyed two months of what I consider optimized treatment. Overall, I feel tremendously better. I no longer have to drag myself out of bed, dreading the day because I know I am going to be too fatigued to handle it well. I still get tired occasionally, and nap (with the machine) when I want to. I figure after decades of crappy sleep, my body still craves the good sleep it has been missing out on. I missed two nights of therapy in six months and paid a hell of a price. It took me two weeks each time to get back to where I was feeling better. So I NEVER sleep without the machine. I also find that abusing any of the tenets of "sleep hygiene" tend to take a toll. So if you haven't looked into sleep hygiene, google it. I have put on about 12 pounds since starting therapy, despite exercising nearly every day. But I was pretty skinny when I started therapy, and again, I think putting on a little weight is my body's was of recovering my health after years of being "sick" with this condition. I am now capable of committing to social events and getting chores done on the weekend. My overall attitude has improved tremendously. It is nice to feel good for a change.

But, I also put a lot of hours in on this board, researching and asking questions. Learned about Sleepyhead, and how to post images so the folks here could help me. Most of all I embraced the fact that this machine and therapy are with me for life. At this point, you would have to pry my machine out of my cold, dead hands. LOL. It is not easy, especially when you are so tired, to take control of your therapy and devote the time and energy necessary to learn how to do so. But it is so very worth it.

Hang in there.