First few nights a success thanks to you!

Hey All,

Wanted to report that thanks to all your advice my first few nights with CPAP have been no problem. Pre CPAP RDI 63. My titrated pressure is 9.

Here is what I'm using:

REMstar Auto with CFLEX and integrated humidifier
Australian Heated Hose
Swift Nasal Pillows
PAPillow
CPAPman hose suspension device

I've been 100% compliant thus far with no problems...the Swift is VERY comfortable for me and does not leak at all. The humidifier and heated hose leave my sinuses/nose feel very good...almost better than without CPAP. The hose suspension device keeps the hose out of my way.

I just slept 11 hours with the thing on and I think I only woke up a couple times to adjust the pillow/mask.

I'm sure it would not have been so successful without all your tips.

I cannot say I'm feeling a whole lot different but I'm commited to this therapy for a while regardless.

Best!

Glad you are doing well! That is great! Keep up with it, attitude is very important.

Congratulations!

Please tell me what are the tips. I too have a cflex with humidifier and a swift. I am not doing well, the swift is my third mask. My time using a cpap is decreasing not increasing over the two months I have had it. Last night was one of the shortest nights yet, 10 minutes.

I have decided to put it away for a while until I am ready to try again, but when I read your post I thought maybe there are some tricks out there I am unaware of.


Thanks.

Susan,

The tips I spoke of are regarding the equipment choices primarily. I purchased a number of masks and found the swift to be very comfortable. The humidification is very nice.

I think people can lose sight of, or never really understand in the first place, the sequelae of untreated sleep apnea. My RDI was 63 and my oxygen sats went down to 65%. 65% Oxygen sats are VERY dangerous to ones health, and most immediately ones brain. Since I do not want furthur brain damage, I made a very clear choice to be compliant with my CPAP even if I had to STAPLE/GLUE/SCREW the mask to my face.

I see people with much worse medical conditions than OSA every day, and in comparison using a CPAP is nothing compared to their trials and tribulations.

Thousands of people die every day from preventable causes of death. Poorly compliant diabetics, emphysema patients who insist on smoking, heart disease patients who refuse to exercise. They make a choice to die from their disease when they do not do everything in their power to combat it.

I figured if I was not compliant with CPAP I was making a choice that would hasten my demise, simple as that.

Best!

Well said Guest,

We have a very simple and effective treatment. All we have to do is use it !
No drugs, Surgery or painfull therapy. Just use the mask. I will prevent many , many very serious complications in the future.

Chris

Ligament,

Are you using the CPAPman hose suspension device at the top or side of the bed and is it very useful?

I use the hose suspension device at the head of my bed....it bisects me length wise, that way I can lay on either side with minimal tugging on the hose.

I am glad you are having success, you are very fortunate.

I am truly sorry I asked for tips, I did not need a lecture! Does a smoker know he shoundn't smoke? Do you help him quitting by lecturing him or by presenting him with the tips you used to quit.

With all due respect, Susan, you asked for tips. I think Guest's comments were simply answering your post.

I've really been struggling with getting used to my CPAP, with very little success so far. The one thing that keeps me going is reading posts on this board, hearing how many others are going through the same thing, reading tips, hints and encouragement. Every time I get on the board I come away with a renewed commitment to something that, right now at least, I hate.

I'll even add to Guest's comments. In addition to the health aspects (using the CPAP can literally be a life or death decision), I want to look and feel better. Sometimes that's my only reason for continueing.

I'll venture in with a thought...truly not meant as a lecture...although it may come across that way. If so, I really do apologize.

One of the strengths of a message board like this is that even people who never ever post a question or a comment can see a lot of good information. Sometimes all of us add extra thoughts to our posts, beyond just answering a question.

SusanMH, you posed a very good question..."what tips?"

I thought Ligament answered it well.

chrisp (as I saw it) was simply agreeing with Ligament's additional thoughts.

I'm glad Lig and chrisp added comments about how important this kind of treatment is. I saw it as thinking out loud rather than as something directed at any one person for asking a question. Even if you or I or others already understand the health risks of untreated OSA, I don't think it ever hurts for someone to mention them again and again.

That could be the small nudge that helps someone else out there who is simply reading the topic seek help and keep looking for ways to make it work for them, too.

SusanMH wrote: I am truly sorry I asked for tips, I did not need a lecture! Does a smoker know he shoundn't smoke? Do you help him quitting by lecturing him or by presenting him with the tips you used to quit.

Sussan,
Please give some details on what the issues you are facing and the attempts you did to resolve the issues.

Comments not intended as a "lecture" to you Susan, it is my way of rationalizing my cpap compliance.

I have some serious health problems. Most of which my doctor believes is related to severe oxygen desaturation that has spanned most of a lifetime. I am tall and thin, no one ever suspected that my health problems were related to apnea not until the damage was done.

My home health care offers no solutions. I want to know how others do it. Like what is that hose suspension gadget? What is a Pap pillow? How do you sleep on your stomach? What do you do about the sinus pain, these are the sort of things I thought could be shared. I have struggled three months with things getting worse not better.

Susan, too many folks who quit or do not comply regard the mask and machine as their enemies, instead of their life-saving best friends. There are actually very, very few people who HAVE to give up cpap therapy, and they often have quite a full plate outside of the sleep apnea to deal with. But it is their choice.

It is also your choice to put the equipment up and try later. But you must realize that your life is literally at stake. That is the consequence of waiting. You might do fine, in the sense you won't get any worse. But you might not. You might find yourself in the emergency room with a heart attack in the middle of the night from untreated sleep apnea.

Chances are that unless you motivate yourself to do this and tough it out, that if you start up again, your results will not be any better. You have to WANT to do this because you know it is best for you and your loved ones.

As Rested Gal said, let us know your problems so we can address them. Are your nostrils getting sore from the Swift? Use a little KY jelly or Neosporin to reduce the irritation. is it noise. Try a piece of vegetable bag mesh in the barrel. Do you feel you can't breath? Maybe your pressure is not correct or you need to use the ramp, or your nose is stuffed up and you need to use a steroid prescription nasal spray for a while. Do you have a heated humidifier? That helps tremendously with the stuffiness and will gradually eliminate it. Do you have other health problems that are affecting your sleep like chronic pain, a non-supportive spouse, relatives ragging on you to lose weight, depression or anxiety, a job they are threatening to fire you from if you don't stop falling asleep there?

All these things can be addressed, but you have to let us know. Would you believe that probably most of your health problems are caused by your Sleep Apnea? Do you have GERD? CPAP will cure it. HONEST. Do you have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes? CPAP will bring all those way down and rather quickly, too. Do you have to get up to go to the bathroom all the time? A few months on CPAP and you won't be doing that anymore. Sleep Apnea causes Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, weight gain because of high cortisol levels, depression, anxiety, GERD, impotence, nighttime urination, and all of these will be improved by using CPAP. Not to mention your heart and vascular system.

How can you NOT want to continue your CPAP and get there as fast as you can. We can help you. Just let us.

Hi Susan,

"Like what is that hose suspension gadget?"

It's a vertical rod that looks somewhat like the pole they hang glucose bags on in hospitals. But this is L shaped...the base slides in between mattress and box springs to support the vertical rod. You can hang the main air hose up there to keep the hose overhead and out of your way as you toss and turn.

It used to be sold on cpapman.com's site, but I just now went there and clicked the link to "hose support"...it was no longer on that page of "close out" items; so maybe he's not carrying it anymore.

It's easy to rig up your own way to keep the hose up. I use a stretchy elastic ponytail scrunchy to run the main air hose through. I hang the scrunchy on a hook (actually a swivel plant hanger screwed into the wall above the head of my bed.) I've read of others using a bungee cord fastened to the wall or headboard, or a clamp on the headboard, or just draping the air hose over a low headboard.

One of the simplest ideas I've seen is making a "sockball" (tying several socks at the same place around the hose to form a big "ball") and wedging the sock ball tightly between head of bed and wall.


"What is a Pap pillow?"

It's a pillow sold by the TAS (another message board) sleep store.

The main thing when you're wearing most masks is how to keep the mask from getting shoved against your face or getting shoved out of place and leaking when you're sleeping on your side with your face against a pillow. It helps to have a pillow with a firm enough edge that your head is kept far enough up off the mattress that the mask doesn't touch the mattress either.

Any firm pillow edge can accomplish that...keeping the mask raised up. Most of us who sleep on our sides just keep our heads on the edge of a fairly firm pillow, letting the mask hang out with nothing under it. Or, with some masks, a Tempur-Pedic or other memory foam type pillow can absorb the mask well enough. I use a Tempur-Pedic pillow - very dense memory foam. It used to feel too low and dense, so I used a thin regular foam pillow stacked on top of the Tempur-Pedic. Gradually I started switching it...putting the foam pillow on the bottom and Tempur-Pedic on top. Now I use just the Tempur.

I personally never bought a "Pap" pillow as I read about several people finding that it felt very hard...some even unstitching it to remove some of the stuffing - buckwheat hulls, I believe.

"Too hard" was my initial reaction to the Tempur-Pedic pillow, but the memory foam is quite remarkable once you get used to it.

"How do you sleep on your stomach?"

I guess most tummy sleepers still keep their head turned to one side or the other, so it would depend on which mask and which pillow for their head suited them best. I don't normally ever sleep on my stomach, but while experimenting with my Aura (when it still had its headgear) I tried tummy-sleeping position and it worked comfortably even with my face buried face-down into a soft fluffy pillow. The design of the Aura's exhaust (straight up) kept it from being blocked even with face buried into a pillow.