OSA and depression...

YES! Definitely continue with the humidifier......cool/"pass-over". Heated humidity can have the effect of closing up some people's nasal passages.

I get a leak rate of about 40 or less (on a good night) with my UMFF at a pressure of 12......which is about where it's supposed to be.

If you sleep on your back with all of those pillows under your head, it can tilt your head forward, and put more "kink" in your airway. Back-sleeping (supine) is the worst position for apneas for that reason.......and your tongue is more inclined to fall back in your throat with the same results.


Den

maybe they are going to make a drug that works??

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 434486.ece

Babette, I got one of those Big Lots Pillows my self on Friday, I can't say enough of a good thing about it. Sleeping on my side with my nasal mask is no longer an issue. I also find if it is leaking, pulling the mask off slightly and making sure the gell cushion is filled with air is usually the key.

I also suffer from clinical depression and bi-polar and it is severe at times. I am on a few things which can hopefully be adjusted as I get energy back. I always thought it was my depression giving me lack of motivation. I have been alot more upbeat and doing things physically that I have not done in quite a while, especially over the past week. I think more energy, physical excercise, CPAP, ane psychological state are all related as well. I hate having the obligation to take meds but I don't wanna go back to where I was before them. I am real fortunate to be up to 6--8 hours a night so soon in my therapy.

Dreamdiver, stick with it and learn from the people here who have lots of experience and you'll get through this. Find a comfortable mask and sleeping arrangement, it does take a bit of trial an error but you will find what works.

Den,

So here are last nights results:

I turned off the heat on the humidifier and tightened the straps on the mask since Den suggested the leak rate was ragged.

This is the first half of the night:


This is the second half:


There is a gap of about an hour. I had a nightmare about a very large troll about to make me it's plaything, when I woke up. I went to the bathroom, strapped back in and loosened the top straps just slightly because my temples were hurting - not the usual headache thing. I can only guess the gap exists because the FF mirage doesn't always seem to pick up the fact that I'm actually wearing it. The auto-on feature seems somewhat hampered. It usually doesn't take more than four or five breaths, but sometimes, I have to reach over and pop the button or breathe very forcibly for a few breaths. That doesn't happen with the swift. This time, I guess I fell asleep as my head hit the pillow and didn't pay attention to whether the auto-on worked. I must have had an apnia that made it turn on after about an hour.

The rest of the night was higher than usual, possibly because of the slightly loosened mask. It certainly wasn't large-leaking because it was still tight. I really don't like it that tight. I feel cheese pressed tight in a cheesecloth - my cheeks straining to find any way out from between its constraints.

However, I like the zeroes for the first half.

I'll continue with the tighter mask settings and the unheated humidity and see how it goes.

Cheers

Snoredog wrote:maybe they are going to make a drug that works??

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 434486.ece

A number of specialist docs have prescribed various depression drugs for headache and body pain, siting that some of the older depression drugs had pain-reduction side effects. What a load of crap. Most of these drugs change your body chemistry, certainly, but I'm not sure they're really doing anything other than a. making you giddy, b. making you sleepy, c. making your heart race.

One of the best products I ever tried was - believe it or not - zantac. It calmed my peptic upset and suddenly there was a weight off my chest. Suddenly there was a lack of anxiety. Of course that was the first time, but like most drugs, your body gets used to it. I haven't taken zantac in years. It would probaby have a similar effect if I took it today.

It may be that what I'm interpreting as depression is actually an unstaunched, unmitigated sense of anticipation and anxiety, like when you're at the top of the roller coaster and you are accelerating, faster and faster. You know it's supposed to slow down sometime, but instead, things just seem to continue accelerating. Your body gets tighter and your muscles give up relaxing, and it keeps going faster. Zantac seemed to quell that.

Part of the problem is that drugs are only a temporary chemical respite. Meditation really is a better answer to the problem. It's also a lot less expensive and therefore doesn't get funding from major pharmaceutical companies because they can't get a return on an investment that actually makes people well. If people were taught meditation from childhood, it would be a well established health regime - like brushing teeth or exercise.

I wear the top straps on my UMFF very loose. Basically they're just there to keep the mask from pivoting off my head. I have whatever tension I need on the bottom straps. I find that the loose top straps also allow the upper part of the seal to expand better to seal along and around my nose. I like my mask somewhat loose, too, but there can be a fine line where you find "just right"......loose enough to feel good and get the seals to expand to fit, but not too loose to leak too much.

If the machine is shut down for more than one hour, it'll break up the charts like it did for you last night.

Try to figure out what you did "right" for the first 4 hours......and then keep doing it.


Den

Gotta say one thing that definitely help with this change in my life is my pets. I've got 2 labs and a cat. I love it now that at least my cat is at the point where she'll come up to my feet. One of my dogs gets kenneled at night, but my other one is starting to check out the machine and when she does sleep with me again, it relaxes me. Know some people don't beleive in pet therapy, but if you do, you understand.

I'm gonna try loosening the staps at my temples to see if my mask seals better around the top of my nose. Intuitively, I think tight is better, but I not necessarily so I gather.

Insomniyak wrote:Gotta say one thing that definitely help with this change in my life is my pets. I've got 2 labs and a cat. I love it now that at least my cat is at the point where she'll come up to my feet. One of my dogs gets kenneled at night, but my other one is starting to check out the machine and when she does sleep with me again, it relaxes me. Know some people don't beleive in pet therapy, but if you do, you understand.

I'm gonna try loosening the staps at my temples to see if my mask seals better around the top of my nose. Intuitively, I think tight is better, but I not necessarily so I gather.

For me, any pressure on the bridge of my nose starts cutting off my nasal breathing, so that's my main reason.......but the "flaps"/seals need to expand to be able to get a good seal to the face.


Den

That dang flap was cutting into the bottom of my nose for a while and I thought it was the mask itself, so after that I understand the need to keep it more loose than tight so the flap and seal can do their job.

DreamDiver wrote: ..........
It may be that what I'm interpreting as depression is actually an unstaunched, unmitigated sense of anticipation and anxiety, like when you're at the top of the roller coaster and you are accelerating, faster and faster. .........

Based on my struggles and experience and talking to a good therapist, I believe the probability is high that all your emotional problems are a result of sleep apnea. Look what is happening when you have apneas. Your brain and all cells in your body are not getting sufficient oxygen. High levels of cortisol and adrenaline are being pumped into your blood stream. Recent evidence suggest most hormone levels are becoming abnormal.

You are sleep deprived. Your mamillary bases in your brain are shrinking and there are scars forming in your brain's white matter (see recent UCLA studies).

Any drugs or meditation or exercise or diet are only addressing the symptoms. The root cause is sleep apnea and this needs to be addressed!

May you have quick success in getting an excellent cpap therapy working.

rooster wrote:Based on my struggles and experience and talking to a good therapist, I believe the probability is high that all your emotional problems are a result of sleep apnea. Look what is happening when you have apneas. Your brain and all cells in your body are not getting sufficient oxygen. High levels of cortisol and adrenaline are being pumped into your blood stream. Recent evidence suggest most hormone levels are becoming abnormal.

You are sleep deprived. Your mamillary bases in your brain are shrinking and there are scars forming in your brain's white matter (see recent UCLA studies).

Any drugs or meditation or exercise or diet are only addressing the symptoms. The root cause is sleep apnea and this needs to be addressed!

May you have quick success in getting an excellent cpap therapy working.

Rooster,
I have now adopted this as my point of veiw. I've been wondering why meditation wasn't really helping. It used to be easy, and so did exercise. I think you're right. There's no other reason for my feeling crappy. Feeling like I'm still accelerating downhill and feeling a malaise about it definitely fits the with adrenal over-stimulation and the difficulty losing weight. When I have had enough sleep, I do still leap out of bed, sort of. (Morning person.) I just really need to get some decent sleep.

I'm getting the PapCap. I plan to try it with my Swift II as well as the FF Mirage. If that doesn't work, I'll try it when it's my turn to try the Nasal Aire II. (With the "extrae e" in "Aire") I'm also researching other Full Face masks and oximeters. I'll ask about oximeters in another post.

Untreated OSA results in a situation where you get exactly 0 minutes of clinical sleep.

On top of the collateral effects of oxygen deprivation for hours on end every night.

The effects of chronic sleep deprivation for me--it's having absolutely none of the normal emotional "buffer" that you usually have when you actually sleep. Like I said before, if your depression is OSA-related, conventional depression treatments aren't likely to be nearly as successful as treating the OSA.

You're on the right track!

DreamDiver wrote:

Goofproof wrote:... We are like a big concrete wall, life comes at us from all sides, chipping away at us. We have to stop the chipping, where and when we can, keeping a good atitude and a positive outlook help, it also helps not to take things too seriously, the world revolves no matter what we do. Take time to enjoy the joke. If we think life gets better, it will. Jim

Goofproof, Gasp,

There are extenuating circumstances:
I react badly to a large variety of foods. I have a lot of bowel troubles. I have little tolerance for alcohol, let alone aspirin. High-powered general anesthetics bung me up for a week. I have sever reactions to certain types of pesticides. Wheat and nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplant, tobacco) are nearly poison to me. Pizza is death pie, much though it makes my mouth water. From the outside I look like the picture of health except for strikingly hollow eyes in the morning. I'm skeptical of doctors and specialists who aren't performing a specific function like polyp removal because their response to my concerns are that it's all in my head - except of course for the food reactions.

Before I started CPAP therapy, I was getting all sorts of health problems from persistent cough to rashes. (I still get rashes.) Polyps, cysts, thrush, beta strep... all within two years and repeatedly for the thrush and strep. At one point, I was getting hives for no known reason and had to take prednisone. After starting therapy, the health problems seem to have been staved off. The cough went away entirely. But they seem to be coming back in small ways again. It's the headaches and now the rashes again.

I know there are plenty of people out there who are much worse off, so I feel like just one more of our 'Nation of Whiners.'

Who doesn't pray for a miracle? No, I'm not giving up, but I could use a miracle any time now.

gasp wrote:I started by not putting anything in my mouth that was processed, instead only eating whole foods. I drink pure water (without fluoride or chlorine etc). I take vitamin D, and other supplements that were determined by a blood test my body needs. I never drink soft drinks, caffeine, drink very little alcohol, eat very little simple carbs or sugars, and sweat four to five times a week. This, over years, has reduced my allergies (including chemical sensitivity) to almost zero.

Gasp,

We have similar boats, matey.
Arrrr...

Except I'm addicted to chocolate.

dreamdiver - have you been tested for celiac sprue? I have it. It, like OSA, can show up as depression and a host of other things, including wheat intolerance. Like OSA, you can't be fixed if you have it but there is treatment that works - basicaly no more pizza - no more any thing with gluten. I would suggest testing for it if you haven't tried that route already. There is a simple blood test but it has a high false negative rate. I would do it first though because the positive rate is accurate.

Good luck. write me private if you need more references on this. I have known I was celiac since my son was born (he is too) and have lived with it for almost 12 years now. So I know of links, and info and just can give you support if you need it.

good news though, celiac's do get to keep eating chocolate.