First sleep in nearly a week..

Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine (and some good advice given here - thankyou!), I finally got some sleep after nearly a week of being hooked up to this evil contraption..

I first tried the herbal stuff for a night or two - valerian is snakeoil and should be banned. I then tried the chemist's antihistamine sleep stuff with little results, at least it made me feel a little groggy..

Went to the doc yesterday and asked for help. He offered Melatonin, I asked him for harder stuff first as I was a habitual non-sleeper even without the machine, and said I'll try the other stuff next. He thankfully agreed.

Desperate for sleep, I took a (10mg) Temazepam at 7:30pm.. waited to get sleepy.. absolutely nothing.. at 9:30pm in frustration I took another, masked up, and 15 minutes later drifted off. I guess it's all about the dose.

10 hours later I woke up. I dreamed and stuff, so I know I was asleep. Mask was still on.

This morning I actually _feel_ like I slept - for the first time in years. Still a bit tired, but less headachey and confused. For once I don't feel tired enough to go straight back to bed.

Feel a little dirty for needing drugs, but hopefully they help me establish a good sleep hygiene/bedtime routine.

jedimark wrote: Feel a little dirty for needing drugs, but hopefully they help me establish a good sleep hygiene/bedtime routine.

No need to feel guilty for needing some drugs. They do help some people through the rough patch of getting used to sleeping with a CPAP. Just be sure, however, that you and the doc both agree on the overall strategy of using the drugs: Discuss how long you should plan on taking the drugs---particularly if you plan on taking them every night and the plan for weaning you off the meds when it's time to quit taking them. You don't want to trigger rebound insomnia.

While you are taking medication to help you sleep, don't get complacent about improving the sleep hygiene and bedtime routine. Such changes can take a real effort and commitment to make them a real part of your daily life. Start by reading a standard set of good sleep hygiene rules and honestly analyze your current habits to see which ones you keep some of the time and which ones you routinely violate as well as those you already use on a consistent basis.

For the rules that you routinely don't use, you need to consider just how important the rule is regarded to be in helping establish good sleep patterns: The more important the basic rule is, the more you need to work on incorporating it into your life.

I needed big doses of valium type meds to cope with my sleep studies and also adjusting to my first CPAP, I dont feel guilty about this now