How do you maintain your dignity while using your CPAP?

sagesteve wrote:I've worn mine to Wal-Mart...nobody looked! They could care less. NOBODY cares!!! Get over it. BREATHE for once in your life. Get it? LIIIIIFE!!!!!!!

Why would you wear it to walmart????

BlackSpinner wrote:

sagesteve wrote:I've worn mine to Wal-Mart...nobody looked! They could care less. NOBODY cares!!! Get over it. BREATHE for once in your life. Get it? LIIIIIFE!!!!!!!

I live right near 3 seniors complexes - one has to watch out or you get run over by them on their power tricycles with their oxygen nose masks and tiny dog leaning into the wind.

You are lucky, here they have 6 grandkids following them single file, at a street corner, it's like waiting for a Coal Train to pass. It's even worse when they all go in a circle round and round in the crosswalk. Jim

All I have to do is look at my wife in the morning, she is still there!!!!! Now when I was on the couch, well thats a dignity issue. Keep your head up, cpap does a body good!!!!

I went a long time without treatment because i didnt want to have to use a machine and a mask everynight to get to sleep...and i kept up that argument for quite a while. It wasnt untill i got sick of falling asleep at work multiple times of day and getting warned by my employer about sleeping on the job....not being able to watch TV or use the computer without falling asleep on my keyboard...not to mention fighting to stay awake while driving home from work each day in traffic....and annoying the heck outta my girlfriend when i would fall asleep and snore so loud she couldnt sleep in the same part of the house as me....

I finally decided its time to do something about it...i admit it looks funny to look like your going on a Deep Sea Diving Exploration rather than going to bed each night but if i can lead a normal life and not fall asleep 50 times a day im all for using CPAP therapy...the difference in me is fantastic ive gone from waking up 66.7 times and hour down to less than 4 times an hour and i dont even wake up once through the night not even for the bathroom

Once you hit rock bottom and realize you need help to lead a normal life then you wont worry about what you look like when you got to bed at night...

We all go through so much when we start this road to better sleeping/living.

I can understand your desire to feel "normal". I struggled deeply when I first got my mask and yes...it was a question of vanity as opposed to dignity. I admit I am very conscious of my appearance. Some say it's vanity. I say as a former ugly duckling if I feel good about how I look, I feel good about me. This results in more confidence etc etc.

With regards to wearing the mask? I still hate it. It makes me feel ugly. Fortunately my husband is wonderful about stroking his wife's fragile ego on that front. He still has no plans to trade me in for a newer, shinier model so all is well.

I learned to let go of my dignity when my first child was born. Nothing like having your brother in law escorted into the delivery room while your legs are flopping around like fish outta water from muscle spasms, afterbirth and such all over. He had a deer in the headlights look that probably matched my own. Only thing I could come up with at that point was to hold out my little baggie of treats and say "cookie?" (at least my private bits were covered up.....I hope!!!)

Anytime I think I look ridiculous with this mask on I think of that moment and say to myself...whatcha gonna do?

I spent the week up at the cottage this past week with my nieces and own kids. My nieces were all very curious about this device beside my bed and since I didn't want them to be freaked out I showed them how it worked. They all felt the exhaust, and then my son told them it blows up balloons pretty good too. They couldn't believe it. So we demonstrated. They thought it was the neatest thing ever and were no longer scared. My little niece put it all into persppective when she asked. "Is this why Uncle Sean died?" (my brother). I explained that no, Uncle Sean had a different condition in his brain (epilepsy) and they didn't have to worry about me dying on them. It was simply that this helps my body to breath because soemtimes it forgets to do it on it's own at night.

Then they asked me to blow up another balloon!! I find by approaching it with a sense of humour either with my husband or kids it makes dealing with the "ugly" of it so much easier. In the end of the day, I'd rather be ugly while I'm sleeping that beautiful in a casket.

So? How'd you make out with the cat?