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I had a problem falling asleep at first. I was paying attention to everything. My breathing, my mask, the hose, the machine running- did the machine just sound different?, my wifes breathing, listening to the anitesphyxiation valve on my mask. You think of it, I was doing it.

I just had to stop doing all that and get in bed and go to sleep. I tried thinking of funny things but that didn't work, my wife would wake up and ask what the heck I was up to that I am laying in bed laughing. I don't know how exactly I did it but I had to stop thinking about all that stuff. I still find myself watching my breathing some nights, then I just fall asleep.

But your sleeping almost 7 hours on the machine correct?

Gerry

I am the opposite I can get to sleep but seems at approx 6hr mark boom I wake up. Today 6 hrs awake at 3am out of bed 3:3o am. Nights over 6 rare but seems no fault of machine JUST ME!!!!!

From waking up at 330 to around 430 in the morning to waking up at 530: Alarm for work. I now get 0 hours because I can't fall asleep with my masks on. I will try w/o C-Flex, the Ramp feature, APAP, pressure between 10-11cm CPAP. I use a NeilMed SinusRinse and NetiPot every night to every other night and a Claritin and can breathe. I know I am getting air but after atleast half an hour of laying there with eyes closed and nothing, I just turn it off and go to sleep and say to myself I'll put it on when i wake up but I don't wake up in the middle of the night.

DJ

Be patient......it's only been a week. Celebrate your success instead of worrying about seven hours. Many newbies would give their eye teeth for seven hours. It tooks you years to make the sleep deficit, it isn't going to be straightened out in a week. I don't find that sleeping longer erases the deficit, but sleeping more efficiently------eg breathing.

Let it go. Enjoy the holidays with your loved ones. Live. Breathe. Be positive. Celebrate your success! Look at how far you've come in the first week.

secret agent girl wrote:I can't seem to sleep much past 6 hours with The Machine. I've never been on the long end of the bell curve as a sleeper, but pretty solidly at or somewhat under 8 hours for most of my adult life. For maybe the past year I guesstimate I've been closer to 7 (but I haven't tracked it assiduously). (Complicating factor: shoulder/back pain that wakes me up.)

Part of what's going on is, I have been delaying going to bed (maybe half an hour?) to make it easier to fall asleep quickly. Only since starting treatment have I had difficulty falling asleep. Reading doesn't distract me; when I'm hooked up I become too aware of my breathing and then start breathing weirdly which brings on a little anxiety. I do use settling (ramp), which helps. I often listen to relaxing music as I fall asleep.

I don't have to set an alarm to get up in the morning. I get up when I wake up. This can be anywhere from 5 am to 7 am. The seasons (and sunrise) affect this. And this isn't a problem for me. All my life, when I wake up and it's past 4am, my brain is in gear and I have no interest and less luck in getting it to shut back down.

I'm sure just giving it more time will help, but that's patience, not proactivity. I don't do patience so well. Now, if I have a distraction to keep me busy while I'm putting time in--that's the sweet spot! I want to be proactive and do what I can to improve this situation. I think some of my increased tiredness after starting treatment is because I'm not making enough progress with my sleep deficit.

Anyone else have a similar "constitution" and experience? What helped for you?

What machine do you use? I understand what you are talking about regarding becoming aware of your breathing and then that starts the weird breathing. When I'm at our apartment in Arizona, I have to wear earplugs because at home it's so quiet and the apartment is noisy. My breath is really loud when wearing earplugs! So, I decided to think of it as ocean waves - like you hear when holding a conch shell up to the ear. That did it for me : )

I was also concentrating on my breathing too much at first, trying to figure out how the machine worked. I had this sense for a while like it was "breathing for me," rather than my own breath setting the pace. That bothered me because I didn't feel I was in control. I was probably hyperventilating a bit actually. I don't feel that sensation any more at all.

My prescribed pressure is only 6 (bumped up to 7 now), and I started out with the ramp (settling) at 4, which is an uncomfortably low pressure to breathe for most people. When I figured out that was part of my problem, I turned off ramp. I've also experimented with EPR. It's on 1 right now, and I'll turn it off in another week or two to see if that affects my results. Earlier, it felt like I was inhaling much deeper (and longer) than exhaling, but I don't seem to have any difficulty exhaling anymore and the breathing seems more even.

I also was sleeping about 6 hours at first. But I figure that those 6 hours of sleep were better quality than I'd had in years. I had some nights when I slept only 4 or 5 hours in those first few weeks too. It wasn't that anything in particular was keeping me from sleeping; I just didn't feel like I "needed" it. Now, 2 months into CPAP use, I sleep anywhere from 7 to 8 hours on average, with some nights at 9 or 10 hours. And most nights I sleep very soundly.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I started using "ocean" and "rain" CDs after a few weeks, and that did help to distract me from my breathing. Sometimes I read sitting upright before bed with my machine turned on. Reading makes me sleepy rather quickly, so that works for me.

Really, I think it just takes time for the body and mind to adjust to everything. I bet in another week or two you will have the experience of waking up and not even realizing the mask is on your face. And soon you won't even think about your breathing as you drift off to sleep. Many people here can only sleep for a few hours before they have to take off their masks, so I think you're doing great!

~ DreamOn

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Secret we need to get a peek at those numbers. I wonder if maybe something is going on after you are asleep for a while that is causing you to wake up.

Then again, you may not have noticed the symptoms before and are actually sleeping now and feeling tired because you are finally resting. I thought I was sleeping well for about 30 years until I got on cpap. I did feel like crap at first and had all kinds of stuff going on. I was not able to sleep long then bam it happened one day I started sleeping longer than I can every remember. I was in bed usually by 9pm and sometimes as early as 8 pm and was sleeping till 5:30. That went on for a while and slowly decreased until it got back to my normal sleeping hours.

Remember though, that my sleep hygiene is crap, as every third day I may not get any sleep or may have up to 4 to 6 hours but it's broken up. Imagine being sound asleep with a heart rate around 40-50 being woke up and your heart rate going up to about 160. That is poor sleep hygiene.

If we get to see your numbers and everything looks ok, I would think it's that your resting and never realized you didn't feel good before.

Gerry

SAG, when my therapy works fine, I don't need as much sleep and I wake up BEFORE my alarm goes off. So its not the length but the quality of sleep that matters. And once you're able to track your numbers, then your therapy will improve. Cos you'll tweak the pressure until you hit a sweet spot. Don't get discouraged, be encouraged that it will get better. It will.

Hi secret agent girl,

For years your body has been having to manufacture plenty of hormones to arouse you out of sleep to keep you alive. It doesn't have to do that anymore, but it hasn't figured that out yet. But it will.

Until it does though, you are waking up with extra "panic juice" that the body never got called on to release the night before. So in a sense, your body is spending all day looking for any excuse to release that stuff into the bloodstream.

Again, this is a process that is irritating for a while, but is really a good sign. Roll with it. Tell secret agent boy to cut you some slack. More important, cut yourself some. This too shall pass. You are doing great.

jeff (jnk)

jnk by phone wrote:Hi secret agent girl,

For years your body has been having to manufacture plenty of hormones to arouse you out of sleep to keep you alive. It doesn't have to do that anymore, but it hasn't figured that out yet. But it will.

Until it does though, you are waking up with extra "panic juice" that the body never got called on to release the night before. So in a sense, your body is spending all day looking for any excuse to release that stuff into the bloodstream.

Again, this is a process that is irritating for a while, but is really a good sign. Roll with it. Tell secret agent boy to cut you some slack. More important, cut yourself some. This too shall pass. You are doing great.

jeff (jnk)

OT
Hey Jeff, how do you post via phone yet can't log in? I've had internet ready phones before but the net was so slow and display of most pages not mobile friendly . . . now I'm getting a Droid and will be using it more. Anyway, so wondered if that was how you're doing it, by mobile phone.

gasp wrote:

jnk by phone wrote:Hi secret agent girl,

For years your body has been having to manufacture plenty of hormones to arouse you out of sleep to keep you alive. It doesn't have to do that anymore, but it hasn't figured that out yet. But it will.

Until it does though, you are waking up with extra "panic juice" that the body never got called on to release the night before. So in a sense, your body is spending all day looking for any excuse to release that stuff into the bloodstream.

Again, this is a process that is irritating for a while, but is really a good sign. Roll with it. Tell secret agent boy to cut you some slack. More important, cut yourself some. This too shall pass. You are doing great.

jeff (jnk)

OT
Hey Jeff, how do you post via phone yet can't log in? I've had internet ready phones before but the net was so slow and display of most pages not mobile friendly . . . now I'm getting a Droid and will be using it more. Anyway, so wondered if that was how you're doing it, by mobile phone.

That's the spirit! Another hijack. YEAH!

My non-cutting-edge phone, older operating system on it, limited browswer, keyboard-pattern password, and general all-around laziness all make it difficult to log in at times when using my previous generation T-Mobile Dash going through WAP. So I just post as a guest with it.

Besides, when one is driving, eating, drinking coffee, listening to the radio, and yelling at traffic all at the same time . . . Just kidding.

jeff

jnk wrote:

gasp wrote:

jnk by phone wrote:Hi secret agent girl,

For years your body has been having to manufacture plenty of hormones to arouse you out of sleep to keep you alive. It doesn't have to do that anymore, but it hasn't figured that out yet. But it will.

Until it does though, you are waking up with extra "panic juice" that the body never got called on to release the night before. So in a sense, your body is spending all day looking for any excuse to release that stuff into the bloodstream.

Again, this is a process that is irritating for a while, but is really a good sign. Roll with it. Tell secret agent boy to cut you some slack. More important, cut yourself some. This too shall pass. You are doing great.

jeff (jnk)

OT
Hey Jeff, how do you post via phone yet can't log in? I've had internet ready phones before but the net was so slow and display of most pages not mobile friendly . . . now I'm getting a Droid and will be using it more. Anyway, so wondered if that was how you're doing it, by mobile phone.

That's the spirit! Another hijack. YEAH!

My non-cutting-edge phone, older operating system on it, limited browswer, keyboard-pattern password, and general all-around laziness all make it difficult to log in at times when using my previous generation T-Mobile Dash going through WAP. So I just post as a guest with it.

Besides, when one is driving, eating, drinking coffee, listening to the radio, and yelling at traffic all at the same time . . . Just kidding.

jeff

You crack me up. I can just see me getting pulled over for posting on the forum after I have the Droid/internet. Uh, sorry officer, I have apnea and I get so sleepy I have to play on the internet to stay awake enough to drive. I wonder if the officer would have heard that one before? LOL Actually I haven't been pulled over for many years - where the heck is some wood to knock on . . .

gasp wrote:... Actually I haven't been pulled over for many years - where the heck is some wood to knock on . ...

That's why my forehead is there! Isn't that why my father meant when he told me I was "hard headed"? Didn't he mean it was made of hard wood.