Sleep apnea or something else

I have been struggling with major sleep problems for a few years.

I have now obtained a CPAP but I am not sure whether sleep apnea is the problem.

What happens to me is that most nights I wake a few times in the night with a blocked nose and a sore and dry mouth and sore throat (mouth breathing). Ultiimately I cant get to sleep again. So often my sleep ranges from between 3 hours to 5 hours. And I feel like crap. I have always had sinus problems but this problem has gotten much worse in the last 3 years. During the day I dont get too much sinus problems.

Also, its my sinuses swelling that blocks my nose. There is no issue with mucus or snot.

I notice most people with sleep apnea talking about sleeping a lot but feeling like crap. I sleep very little and feel like crap.

I had a sleep apnea test a year ago. It showed that I had the reading of 4.2 of that test they do, per hour. It was below the 5 per hour threshold for sleep apnea. But I also felt like the test might not have been effective as I had an especially bad sleep and was awake much of the night so it might have understated the rating of apneas

I have recorded my breathing on many nights. There is some snoring, but maybe only 5% of the time. The rest of the time is loud raspy mouth breathing whcih sounds awful. can see why my mouth and throat get so hacked and dry.

I have started using the cpap. So far, three days in, its awful. get less sleep. Not being able to get to sleep is the problem now rather than waking up at 2am. But maybe this will get better. One thing I do notice is that my nasal passages do not swell with it on. Maybe because of the air pressure. Maybe because I have never fallen asleep as falling asleep seems to cause my nose to block.

Any thoughts on whether what I have sounds like sleep apnea?

The only other remedy for my problem is turbinates reduction surgery. For the nose. Which scares me a lot more than cpap so I wanted to try CPAP first. So far so bad. Hope it works.

Why haven't you tried a full face mask that would alleviate mouth breathing and potentially dryness, not to mention allowing the Cpap air to go where it needs to instead of out of your mouth?

Download (free) Oscar from the top stickies on the page, following instructions re which graphs, etc. to post (but lose the calendar and pie chart) and we can see what's actually happening to be able to give better advice.

And while doctors arbitrarily chose '5' as the number to say you're treated if your AHI's below that, most here consider good treatment to be from 1-2... not e.g. 4.