Can CPAP cause depression/anxiety?

Den:
Plus a million.
Self pity only makes you feel even worse,
and really alienates everyone who has it worse than you!
Which is easily half the planet. Yep.

CM25 wrote:I have been using a CPAP for three years and I do believe it is very possible to become depressed or at least bummed out that you have to be tethered to a machine while sleeping for the rest of your life. Of course you berate yourself for whatever is going on in your body that caused this in the first place be that facial shape or advancing age--anything is possible. I also wonder how it impacts romance. If you ask the CPAP companies they tell you things that seem to be glossing over the issues. One major thing to me that bothers me is traveling. I have not yet tried to fly with the machine but even auto trips are a problem as you have to haul distilled water to use in the humidifier and then you need special water to clean the mask parts. I have contact the maker but get the same thing that all of this is part of the process. So, why wouldn't you get bummed about about the whole situation? Makes sense to me.

Garbage!

You POOOOOOR thing........ Suck it up! You ain't got nothing to complain about.

Here's a quote (attributed to Helen Keller where I found it) for you to ponder........

“I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet” ― Helen Keller


Den

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I was surprised after I got on cpap because instead of suddenly feeling well rested, I was super sleepy and slept long hours. A few people told me to hang in there and it would pass and they were right. It was like once my body realized it was safe to sleep, it wanted to make up for lost time. Seems like it was about a month like that and then I got energetic and for the first time I could exercise and recover and I had energy.

chunkyfrog wrote:If someone tried to take away my CPAP, I guarantee one violent frog!

And they will be buried in a depression, unless the ground is too hard. Jim

If someone tried to take away my CPAP, I guarantee one violent frog!

You misunderstood - people have been diagnosed with depression when in fact they had undiagnosed apnea, because they were always tired and half in a fog, NOT because they have to be on Cpap! We love our machines because they've returned us to the land of the living.

And you certainly don't need special water to wash the mask and can use tap water instead of distilled in the machine when you travel, plus very many places carry distilled in any case.

Many of us travel all over the world with Cpaps and if you prepare properly, should have no trouble at all.

I think I'd get bummed if I or a relative died from sleep apnea, not because using Cpap was a hassle.

I have been using a CPAP for three years and I do believe it is very possible to become depressed or at least bummed out that you have to be tethered to a machine while sleeping for the rest of your life. Of course you berate yourself for whatever is going on in your body that caused this in the first place be that facial shape or advancing age--anything is possible. I also wonder how it impacts romance. If you ask the CPAP companies they tell you things that seem to be glossing over the issues. One major thing to me that bothers me is traveling. I have not yet tried to fly with the machine but even auto trips are a problem as you have to haul distilled water to use in the humidifier and then you need special water to clean the mask parts. I have contact the maker but get the same thing that all of this is part of the process. So, why wouldn't you get bummed about about the whole situation? Makes sense to me.

Thanks so much for the reply & link. Really appreciate it.
I'm actually a licensed therapist, so am pretty "up" on depression. But I still really appreciate your response.
Just trying to figure out why mine has escalated of late. It's something I've lived with for several decades, so it's not new to me. But I just expected the CPAP treatment to lessen it. And perhaps it will, with time. Too soon to tell, for sure.
Thanks again,
Laura

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Hi everyone,
Thanks so much for this discussion.
I am new here, and struggling with adjusting to sleeping with a CPAP, experiencing a significant increase in depressive symptoms. It is the polar opposite of the experience I was expecting! I am going to hang in there, of course, as it has only been a week - I'm not even sleeping through the night yet.
Anyhow, thanks again for sharing your experiences, thoughts and encouragement.
Laura

Pattom93 wrote:Hi this the first time I have sent a message in the Forum. What I am intersted in is the comment being depressed/anxiety. I hired a cpap for 2 months & I will be buying one on Monday. I was very good for the first month, then I become more anxious also more crankier for some reason. I must admit I was depressed when a friend poured all her problems on me also now I have a cold. Do you think it wascaused by both of them. I have been using my cpap for the last few days with my coughing but I am miss using it. Thanks Pattom93

I use a Quatro when I have a cold and really crank up the humidity. By using cough meds at night I find it much much easier to survive colds with my cpap. I was tempted to wear it during the day when I had flu/pneumonia in February but I wear glasses and the quatro didn't allow that.

Make sure you buy a data capable machine so you can see if there are any apneas that is causing the crankiness

Hi this the first time I have sent a message in the Forum. What I am intersted in is the comment being depressed/anxiety. I hired a cpap for 2 months & I will be buying one on Monday. I was very good for the first month, then I become more anxious also more crankier for some reason. I must admit I was depressed when a friend poured all her problems on me also now I have a cold. Do you think it wascaused by both of them. I have been using my cpap for the last few days with my coughing but I am miss using it. Thanks Pattom93

davecpap wrote: I had my follow up with the sleep doc today. He was VERY surprised to find out that I wasn't doing cartwheels yet after 2 weeks on CPAP. I told him that I'd read online that it can take weeks or months to start feeling better, and he said that wasn't his experience. He wanted to start me on provigil, which I'm very anxious about. I've made an appointment with another sleep doc to get a second opinion.

My sleep doc, a pulmonologist, warned me that it can take your mind up to a month to just accept that you won't die with that thing on your face. He was pleasantly surprised to find that I loved the thing and was doing super well with it. Actually cpap has a non acceptance rate that is around 50% so I don't know what kind of experience your sleep doc has.

I did fine for the first 2 weeks and then I started waking up with "OMG I can't breathe!!!!" feelings - at which point I would lift my mask momentarily and tell my self to suck it up and go back to sleep - (after my experience of snorkeling where I at the same time felt I was going to "fall off the top of the water" and claustrophobia due to the mask I don't accept the validity of my mind screaming like that but we won't discuss my anxiety about finding a new job shall we?) These feeling wore off in about 2 weeks too.

Thank you everyone for these kind words. I would have never been able to get this far if it wasn't for the folks on this forum, since I don't know anyone else going through this.

I had my follow up with the sleep doc today. He was VERY surprised to find out that I wasn't doing cartwheels yet after 2 weeks on CPAP. I told him that I'd read online that it can take weeks or months to start feeling better, and he said that wasn't his experience. He wanted to start me on provigil, which I'm very anxious about. I've made an appointment with another sleep doc to get a second opinion.

My current sleep doc wrote me a script for an auto-titrating machine based on two previous sleep studies in 2008 and 2002 by other physicians. I enquired about a 'fresh' sleep study to see if my sleep structure was still fragmented, if I have PLMS, etc... but he didn't want to do a sleep study since my AHIs on the data card are under 5 and my compliance looks good (7hrs/night average).

The process of adjusting to having a chronic disease goes through stages until you get to acceptance. Depression is one of those stages. You may feel as though you've accepted the diagnosis and machine, when actually deep down you're struggling with the concept. You go through the same stages with heart disease, diabetes, anything that's chronic, life threatening and requires constant attention. Give youself a break, you may need a mild sedative or antidepressent to get through this stage, but you must work through it. OSA can seem so innoucous unless you're having really bad symptoms, you may consciously have not come to terms with the diagnosis, yet. Perhaps you can find a therapist who is used to people with sleep disorders, perhaps your sleep doc can recommend one, or help you himslef. Sometimes you have to ask around or call around to the therapists avaiable to you and see if they have someone on staff familiar with sleep issues.
Good luck, hang in there, take care of yourself, and keep us posted.
Mary Z.