Re: Daytime anxiety after starting CPAP?
Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2023 3:52 pm
I live life on a pretty even keel, but I was very emotional for the first month or so after I started using CPAP. (For example, my mother had died eight years earlier, and all of a sudden I started feeling the loss acutely again.) I'm still not completely sure what that was all about, but using CPAP somehow made a big dent in my sense of myself and the prospects for my life ahead. Everyone is different, so I'm not able to say what's right for you, but I can report that my feelings settled down over time, and by the third month in, I was taking the whole thing in my stride.
One thing that helped me a lot was lurking on this and several other forums -- realizing there's a whole community of us having similar experiences and cheering one another on. I also benefited from posts comparing the use of CPAP to the use of eyeglasses: a nuisance, but something that makes life much better.
Later on, I got less reticent about mentioning my apnea and CPAP treatment in conversation. I don't go around button-holing people on the subject, but it does sometimes come up, and I've realized I know a bunch of people who are in the same boat (two old friends, two neighbors on my block, three people at work).
In so many ways, you're doing great! I hope the current tempests will die down soon so you can start enjoying the benefits of getting solid sleep.
One thing that helped me a lot was lurking on this and several other forums -- realizing there's a whole community of us having similar experiences and cheering one another on. I also benefited from posts comparing the use of CPAP to the use of eyeglasses: a nuisance, but something that makes life much better.
Later on, I got less reticent about mentioning my apnea and CPAP treatment in conversation. I don't go around button-holing people on the subject, but it does sometimes come up, and I've realized I know a bunch of people who are in the same boat (two old friends, two neighbors on my block, three people at work).
In so many ways, you're doing great! I hope the current tempests will die down soon so you can start enjoying the benefits of getting solid sleep.