CPAPtalk.com

I've been using CPAP for a bit about a month now, and neither did I feel a huge difference right off the bat. I have severe OSA (with 117 events an hour). But it was some little things that made me know it was helping. After the second night, I didnt have to fight to stay awake while driving to work. Can't tell you how many times I've run off the road in the past years, driving to work. My husband and coworkers also noticed a difference in my eyes almost right away. They said the heaviness was gone, and the bleary, non focused eyes cleared up. My sister told me for so long I'd had that "desperately needs sleep" look to my eyes - and thats gone now.
And now, after a month, I'm noticing my work improving, and my attitude as well.
I give thanks every night when I have the privilege of putting my mask on and knowing I can safely sleep through the night.
I love this board and the people on it - its been a huge help!

I'm so happy for you. It's amazing how those little things can make you feel so wonderful. Just those subtleties that let you know the therapy truly is working makes it all worthwhile. I wish you continued success and that hopefully your next study says you have no events at all. Keep up the positive attitude. Karma is a good thing.

qrlylox wrote:... But it was some little things that made me know it was helping. ...noticed a difference in my eyes almost right away. ...

After 7 or 8 weeks now, I also have not noticed a sudden dramatic improvement, but I am noticing little things such as you mention.

You also mentioned your eyes. Over the years girl friends would tell me the color of my eyes would change between blue and green from time to time. We never knew the reason. The last few days I have noticed my eyes have gone to a rich blue, a color I do not remember ever seeing in them. My first reaction was, I wonder if the variation in color had to do with how well I slept, or not. Perhaps another side effect of sleep apnea? Needless to say I'll be watching to see if they ever go back to green or the old blue again.


Ron

Sleepless on LI wrote:However, I am shocked at how unusually exhausted I feel this morning. I feel more tired this morning than I usually did before I started therapy. Is there a reason for this or is something very wrong here?

Read the post I just put up:

viewtopic.php?p=24073#24073

I finally started to sleep most of the night with the mask about 10 days ago and I felt LOUSY for the following week. Over the last three days I've finally started to feel good.

I have been doing it for a month or so. I have felt better the past couple days. I have started a new blood pressure medicine, and noticed my pressure was lower. This may be the reason, I don't know.

Anyway, it is not good to have apneas during the night. I will continue to use it.
We all should.

Dan

sleepless,

cpap seems to give many different waking experiences each one different from the last, I've experienced waking up and feeling like tearing a house
down with my bare hands, other times I feel "rested" but very much like
i would like to keep sleeping.

I think there is alot to the concept of "sleep debt" and paying that sleep
back over time. studies have shown this effect.

you should feel very lucky about one thing, You don't seem to have any major problems dealing with wearing the mask. I'm fortunate in the same way. I've been on cpap for about two full weeks and have to fiddle with the mask a few times each night with minor leaks but have'nt had any problem adjusting to wearing it.

too many people here post that they are at thier wits end and are going to give up and "chance it " and quit thier cpap therapy, That is a life threatening decision.

Keep at it, you'll have those mornings where you bounce out of bed to conquer the world ! dismiss those tired mornings as your body paying back
it's debt for all the years of borrowing.

don't despair and don't give up or some of the posters here will kick your butt

I said it before and I'll say it again, I love this site. Nowhere else will you find such compassionate people who have never met you before who really want you to succeed at this. I am lucky in that I am not experiencing THAT much trouble with my mask and sleeping with it. However, I woke up this morning and my lips look like I got Botox injections to a fault. I use the Oracle and I am concerned that this might not be good for me even though I am finding it easy to use. Will have to make a phone call later and find out why this is happening. It did happen yesterday but not to this degree. When I awoke this morning, I was not AS groggy as yesterday and definitely not fatigued. After a few minutes, I definitely am noticing an improvement in energy. This is definitely working so I am psyched. I was "blessed" in that my study only showed about 5 AHI and I am on 10 cm, and am considered mild. Maybe that's why it's been an easier trip than for others. I don't know, but I won't question it. Thanks to all for your support. I'm there for you, too.

reading these posts have been very encouraging, as I have been feeling rather disheartened.
I have been using cpap for a year now, after an initial struggle to get used to it, I managed to sleep most nights, wearing the mask all night. (which I consider a major achievement, and a thumbed nose to the nurse in charge of the sleep study, who said i would never get used to it, and reccommended that I NOT be given one!) I have not noticed a vast improvement in the tiredness, I had expected to be full of vim and vigour after reading reports! But there was some improvement - I no longer experience the feeling that I am going to collapse and die at any moment if I don't stop right now! (I am sure some of you recognise that feeling!)
However, lately I have been experiencing severe allergies ( which I am discussing in another thread) so am not able to use the cpap comfortably. Today I have received a letter from the hospital saying that next month I need to collect and wear the 'sleep study' machine, you know, the one you wear on your wrist to measure oxygen levels etc. So I need to try and sort out my problem before then.
Thanks for your encouragement through these posts, I feel a renewed urge to keep on trying.

Janet, I hate to go off in another direction, but did they mention anything to you about PLMD or RLS? They told me although I had a low AHI, I also had 15 or so events of PLMD (periodic limb movement disorder) per hour that also awakens you from your sleep, much like OSA, causing you to be tired, too. When I questioned my doctor as to why I am not being treated for anything other than the OSA right now, she said that sometimes the CPAP therapy takes care of both; and that if I don't feel better after a month of being on the CPAP therapy, they will discuss putting me on medication because that would mean the PLMD was not alleviated by the CPAP machine.
If you were found to have had the same situation, perhaps that is your problem and it needs to be addressed. I hate to bring it up because who needs another problem to deal with. But, by the same token, if it is something you have and it's not being addressed and it could be taken care of, well, enough said. Best of luck to you. And that nurse ought to be taken out of service, by the way!

However, I am shocked at how unusually exhausted I feel this morning. I feel more tired this morning than I usually did before I started therapy.

I can't tell you how relived I am to see this post. The day after the sleep study, where they determined the pressure I needed, I felt the best I've felt in over 4 years. I was also surprised at how irritable I was in spite of feeling better. I can't describe the torture of having to wait nearly two weeks to get my equipment, so Tuesday finally came. I could hardly hold my head up and when they fitted me with the mask I fell asleep in the chair within seconds. So there I sat in the home care office snoozing away. They told me this was common but I was a little embarrassed. I got my machine home excited that I'd feel better. Wednesday morning I felt better. Not great, but better. I didn't expect to be dancing but I at least expected to feel as good as the night of the test. I decided to make a date with my other half since he has had to put up with so much from me over the last few years. I expected to feel even better the second day! Then yesterday came. I felt utterly wiped out. It was a miserable day. I can't say I felt tired as much as I felt like I'd been run over a few times. I think they even backed up and ran over me again for good measure. To say our date was torture is putting it mildly, but I would be damned if I were going to back out on him again. I tried to not let him know how bad I felt but half way through dinner I started shaking and he knew his intuition was right and got me home.

To say I was distressed is putting it mildly but I figured it meant my sleep is different now and my body is going to have to adjust to getting proper sleep again. Reading this post also helped me feel a lot better about it. At least I know I'm not alone in this. Last night was my third night. I felt as if I didn't sleep at all. At one point I thought to myself that if I'm not asleep in 30 minutes I'm going to get up and do some knitting. However, when I got up the clock said 4am, so I must have been asleep somewhere along the line. I cut way back on the medication I've been using to sleep because I thought that was the reason for the dragging yesterday. I'm sure its why I didn't sleep last night. I'm just going to cut it back until I'm off that pill and take my time adjusting to new sleep patterns. I'm up at 5:30am (rare for me) so I'm sure I'm going to be napping today.

In addition to just adding some support about the second day lag, I did want to post a little about the difference of apnea and fatigue. At least for what fatigue is for me. I have other medical conditions that have disabled me, mostly due to fatigue. When I would drive home from work, and have to pull over 3 times to take 15 minute naps....just to get to the next township, that was apnea. When I feel as if the gravity on the planet has been cranked up two or three times the norm, that is fatigue. I experience fatigue nearly every day. My legs feel like lead and most tasks, including sitting at this computer, can be daunting. However, sleep depravation on top of that made my life unbearable. I see a little light on the horizon now. I feel that maybe I can get through a day now and have the energy to face the fatigue and other health issues I have without feeling utterly hopeless.

Thanks so much for this forum and giving me a little ray of hope.

I have a question about the mask but i'll put that under a separate post.
Iorek

I am so glad that the post was able to give you some help. I have gotten so much help here that to give some back makes me so happy.
I think our bodies need time to get used to the new and improved sleep that we forgot all about. We need to be aware, while we adjust, of the subtle nuances that we might miss, if we don't specifically zero in on them, that are signs that we are progressing from the therapy, such as the lessening of fatigue and ability to get further through our days without wanting to nap, etc.
I, too, was sometimes having trouble falling asleep, but I think it's due to the fact that we are excited about the fact that we are going to get some beneficial sleep finally and that stimulates us not only emotionally but sends out some adrenaline into our systems. I am finding now that I am falling asleep a bit quicker, although I am up a few times during the night adjusting the hose if I turn over or draining the moisture back into the tank. But I go right back to sleep, which is a beautiful thing. And I know that the sleep I'm getting is no longer interrupted by apnea episodes that are so detrimental to my health. I wouldn't trade my CPAP machine and mask to go back to where I was two months ago for all the money in the world. It may be a really stressful situation when you first have to endure it all, but once you start getting it down, the rewards are so worth it.
Hang in there, keep the attitude up and keep posting for support. Good luck to you.

Janet, I have a cold right now. I have a runny nose. At night the CPAP dries it out, which I like. We also got some curtains last night. Before that we just had blinds in, and I usually woke up at 5AM with the tiny rays of sun warming my blanket. Now, with the blinds and the curtains, the room is a couple degrees cooler and I slept in until 7. I also did not have one mask leak. Not one. That was amazing. My blood pressure was also 6 points lower on the upper number and 10 on the lower.

I had a great nights sleep. I wiped the mask down (the part that touches my face) with water and dried it. That helps with the seal, I think.

It was good.

It is so great to hear other people are experiencing some of the same feelings I am. I have been using CPAP for almost two weeks. The first week I felt worse than I ever had. Of course my body chose that week to have a sinus infection so I was taking strong antibiotics and all kinds of cold meds. I kept thinking the "fuzzy" headed feeling was the infection. Gradually, I began to notice that even though I felt like I was in a fog, I could remember things again. I remembered what I went in the other part of the house to get, I remembered my son-in-laws birthday present, I even remembered to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work! I was beginning to feel like things were looking up until last night. My mask started making a loud noise and I could not get settled to sleep. I was very tired after working 12 hours--I think the fatigue made it worse. Today I feel tired but still fairly sharp cognitively. I think everyone is different and our responses to therapy will be different. I am looking forward to getting my card reader next week to see what is going on with my numbers.

Good luck everyone and hang in there.

I agree - fatigue makes it worse.

Also it isn't always "not so good apnea control" that makes us miserable in the morning:
I was miserable yesterday morning - because I was dehydrated. Once I figured that out, and started drinking, things looked up.

O.

its been 4 nights now. Yesterday was one of the worst on record for me health wise. I feel a little encouraged to see some new comments about the first week being the worst.

I've been incredibly irritable (not normal for me in the least). I'm grinding my teeth because everything seems so loud. I'm weepy. I feel like I've been ground up in a blender.

Is irritability something you guys have experienced in the first week or so as well? I'm a little astonished at how hard my body is taking this right now. I had no idea I'd have a rough time adjusting to proper sleep again.

Iorek