Sleeping so much more

Hi, everybody,

I am a brand new user of a CPAP. I was diagnosed 10 years ago, but since I only slept an hour, I didn't really believe I had Apnea so after struggling to get used to it for two months, I returned it. I continued to have gasping spells where I would jump out of bed or wake and be pounding on my husband wanting him to pound on my back so I could catch my breath. I recently had 2 more nights of study, one I slept one hour, the other two hours. The one test showed I had 17 episodes in that hour. I have not received my report yet from the second study. However, I was given a Cpap with nasal pillows which I struggled with until the last study. Now I have a soft mask. I put the mask on, lie down, and can't remember lying down until I wake to get up for bathroom, immediately falling asleep. I was hoping to have more restful sleep, but am thrilled and shocked to find that I am sleeping a normal amount of time. Has anyone else experienced this. Thanks so much.

Welcome to the forum.

Glad to hear you're having good results with your therapy this time around. Hang in there.


Den

Welcome Becky. Glad you decided to give it another try - surprised you were able to hold out for 10 years with those scary episodes you described. At least you seem to be adjusting well, since you are getting a good amount of sleep. About you expecting it to be more restful sleep - while many of us would give our eye teeth for 7 hours sleep, and that's probably sufficient for maintenance, if you can you might want to give yourself a little extra while your body is recovering from some long hard years. Also, if you have a nasal mask, you'll want to be sure you are not mouth breathing and thus defeating the effects of the treatment.

One more thing, since your titration logged only 2 hours sleep, unless they captured you during REM while supine, there's a chance the titrated pressure does not address your worst case scenario. Due to the short sleep time, a data capable machine will allow you to see if the titrated pressure continues to be effective when getting those 7 hours.

Congratulations on a good re-start.

Kathy
once a quitter too