Especially for newly diagnosed - Dealing with Change

Hello All!

Excellent posts concerning the acclimation period that unfortunately comes with adapting to CPAP usage. The upside is that you all have some very important health benefits and increased energy to look forward to, as long as we can over any difficulties.

Regarding the last post about what equipment, mask, etc etc. In most cases, your initial mask is determined at your titration study. Fisher and Paykel, by the way generally makes masks appropriate for higher pressures due to the foam insert. The machine however, can be determined by quite a few factors. The doctor's preference of brand and model, makes a big difference in what your equipment provider will offer you and what equipment actually worked during your study. Did CPAP work, or did you need bipap or vpap?

I'll be happy to offer some suggestions. I'll need to know a little more information. What is your pressure? Do you need full face mask? How did the your sleep studies go? Were you able to sleep during your titration? Did you get dried out? Did they, by chance, tell you what your apnea hypopnea index (AHI) was?

Jim

Preacher29 wrote:Greetings. I am a newly diagnosed sleep apnea patient, and I found this thread very helpful indeed. Having a little trouble with acclimating to the CPAP (at least I don't take it off in my sleep like some people do) but I think I am starting to get used to it. Mostly I sometimes have difficulty breathing when sleeping on my back, and I am not sure if I am "mouth breathing" sometimes or not. I do seem to be going through a fair amount of water in the humidifier. My wife said that I was for a while but I have tried various means of stopping that. Not sure how well it is working.

I wonder if I might need a full face mask but I am told that those don't do as well and my respiratory therapist doesn't really want to do that.

Welcome Preacher,

Please come introduce yourself down in the "Topics" section of the forum (start a new thread), where people are more likely to spot your post. If you also list your machine and mask as you see in most of our signature boxes, you'll get lots of help from the experienced cpap users on the forum.

Thanks I needed to read this especially tonight. It's been a tough adjustment but through the grace of God I will get through it.

Hi, everyone. I just had a sleep study last night (what an experience....I have facial claustrophobia and have trouble tolerating a mask). I managed it, though. Mouthbreather so had to go with a full-face mask. The respiratory sleep tech told me I absolutely have severe sleep apnea, and she'd leave it to the doc to discuss the rest early next week. I'm so anxious about this.....I'm gonna hang out here and hopefully benefit from the experience of real folks like you. TIA.

Ocean

Hello, I am a new user and I wanted to read your article about coping with change but I cannot access it. Could you please help me? Thank you

back2collegemama wrote:Hello, I am a new user and I wanted to read your article about coping with change but I cannot access it. Could you please help me? Thank you

There seems to be a problem with the CableOne server. I'll check into it later today when I have time. Thanks.

idamtnboy wrote:

back2collegemama wrote:Hello, I am a new user and I wanted to read your article about coping with change but I cannot access it. Could you please help me? Thank you

There seems to be a problem with the CableOne server. I'll check into it later today when I have time. Thanks.

It looks like CableOne has discontinued their personal web pages, without notice to users to boot!

I'll have to figure what to do about file hosting and then will update the links when I get it hosted again.

idamtnboy wrote:

idamtnboy wrote:

back2collegemama wrote:Hello, I am a new user and I wanted to read your article about coping with change but I cannot access it. Could you please help me? Thank you

There seems to be a problem with the CableOne server. I'll check into it later today when I have time. Thanks.

It looks like CableOne has discontinued their personal web pages, without notice to users to boot!

I'll have to figure what to do about file hosting and then will update the links when I get it hosted again.

The file has been relocated to another server and the link has been updated.

back2collegemama wrote:Hello, I am a new user and I wanted to read your article about coping with change but I cannot access it. Could you please help me? Thank you

It's fixed now. I sent you a link in a private message, and the link that was broken now works.

I finally got a call from my sleep center to come and get my machine this Friday. Does anybody have any suggestions on what
questions I should ask them? I had my sleep test a couple of months ago and have been waiting since then to get this started. I was told my ahi was 68.2. I am really hoping the cpap helps me.

Thanks

slickwil wrote:I finally got a call from my sleep center to come and get my machine this Friday. Does anybody have any suggestions on what
questions I should ask them?

Please create a new posting in the discussion forums for your question. You will receive more attention there. This topic has very limited participation and we are trying to keep it free of general discussions about CPAP issues to keep it from becoming bloated. Thank you.

Thank you for this well written article. I have copied it to save in my C-PAP folder. I am newly diagnosed and still haven't reach the acceptance stage. Glad to know there is hope.

I haven't reached acceptance either. I want to know why God can't heal us? What lesson is it necessary for me to learn. I've learned a lot of them lately and quite frankly I've had enough.

I'm almost 4 months of cpap therapy. I've always accepted the fact that I needed a cpap machine. My problem is that I had very high expectations eg; I would be able to keep the machine on all night every night, I would have huge amounts of energy etc. It hasn't turned out that way.

maggie, While you have high expectations, they are not unrealistic.

Remember that each journey begins with a single step. Many times we get caught up in figuring out how to conquer the obstacles ahead that we forget to stop and sit down and rest for awhile and look back to see how far we have come.




OK, rest period is over and to borrow a famous line "Up, UP, and Away."

Remember that we are here to support you in any way that we can. Most of us will trying and offering new ideas until you finally experience success.