How long on CPAP therapy b4 you started feeling better?

So as suspected my sleep study came out positive for OSA. I haven't met with my doc only spoke over the phone and I had 18 breathing interruptions an hour. He said the time I was using the CPAP didn't give good data so they are lending me an APAP and doing a mask fitting on Monday to get me going and to see what it comes up with for my pressure. I made it clear to him at our first meeting I only wanted to do one study and he's being a good guy and not pushing me to do another night of an expensive and torturous sleep study. Phew. He's also setting me up with one of their machines and masks free of charge so his office can push my insurance to pay for a machine which I was told was not covered. He says there are patients with this carrier that have it all covered. I said, hey go for it!!

So I am starting Monday, hopefully in time for an afternoon nap! He says to start with zero expectations but I am actually kind of excited to get this going to see if I start feeling normal during the day at some point in the near future.

So my question is how long did it take for you to adjust using your CPAP and start feeling a bit of improvement?
How long before you really felt it was making a real positive difference in your life?????

It's different for everyone. Some feel and see results right away, some take a month or two, some take a very long time to feel and see even the smallest improvements.
I was lucky, I took to it fairly easily and felt results very quickly.

Brenda

It is so true that it is different for everyone. I have been on xpap since last november and there were times when I wondered how I would ever persevere. But the prospect of feeling normal during the day was so appealing that I was determined to be successful. I think this forum is a major part of my "success" (to the degree that I do feel better and more able to function) because the folks here know what they are talking about and can help support you through the hard times. It might take a while to find the most comfortable mask and to become accustomed to it. and it could take a while to sort out mask liners, hose holders etc. that you might need. There is a learning curve but the forum will help you. And it could take a while for the "oxygen debt" you have built up to be "repaid." You may start feeling better immediately or it may be a slow, gradual process. But you have found the right place to get knowledgeable support.

soundersfootballclub wrote:He's also setting me up with one of their machines and masks free of charge so his office can push my insurance to pay for a machine which I was told was not covered. He says there are patients with this carrier that have it all covered. I said, hey go for it!!

Sounds like you've got a thoughtful and caring doc there. But I do have a question about your insurance. Or rather a question you should be asking your insurance company repeatedly:

Do you pay for CPAP machines by HCPC code? And do you use HCPC code E0601 when you pay for CPAP machines?

If the answer to these questions is Yes, then your insurance should pay for any CPAP or APAP machine since they are all coded as E0601, from the dumbest brick of a machine without data capability or EPR to the top of the line machine with all the bells and whistles you could wish for. Now the thing is the insurance company will pay exactly the same amount of money to the DME for a bottom of the line brick or a top of the line APAP like the S9 AutoSet. And so that provides plenty of incentive for the DME to claim all kinds of reasons for not providing you with a machine like the S9 AutoSet. And one of the lines they feed you is: Your insurance won't pay for it.

If you haven't already done so, I suggest you read JanKnitz's What You Need to Know Before You Meet Your DME.

He (the doc) says to start with zero expectations but I am actually kind of excited to get this going to see if I start feeling normal during the day at some point in the near future.

So my question is how long did it take for you to adjust using your CPAP and start feeling a bit of improvement?
How long before you really felt it was making a real positive difference in your life?????

I think the doc is wise to caution patients against expecting too much too fast from their CPAP machine. A very few lucky souls take to CPAP like ducks to water and start feeling (much) better (almost) immediately. For the rest of us, it takes time, patience, and often some hard work to make this therapy make a significant difference in our day-to-day lives.

Contrast this to what my (first) sleep doctor told me: You will feel better in two weeks. Two weeks into therapy I felt like something the cat threw up---easily 100 times worse than I had felt before starting CPAP. And it ran the full gamet: Not sleepy at night due to a fast growing insomnia monster; horrible aerophagia (in part because of being slightly overtitrated); monstrous daytime sleepiness unlike anything I'd ever experience before starting CPAP; deeply and profoundly uncomfortable in my own bed every single night due to the sensory overload from trying to sleep with the hose; snarly and angry much of the day and full of tears much of the night; all in all--a real basket case both during the day and at night.

But I stuck with it. And kept sticking with it---at the beginning mainly out of a sense of fear of what would happen if I gave up. I don't yet have any of the common comorbidities of OSA, but a whole bunch of them run in my family.

And now 10 1/2 months after I started xPAP, with a switch from CPAP to APAP to BiPAP and multiple pressure changes along the way, how do I feel? The insomnia war is almost won (knock on wood) and with getting my migraines and seasonal allergies under control, I am now (finally) beginning to feel a bit better on many days than I felt last summer before this whole adventure began. And on my best days, I'm feeling much more like myself from 15 years ago---before the OSA developed. My energy levels are slowly returning to those I had when the kids were young (but not toddlers) and on my best mornings, I'm starting to wake up in a way that is reminiscent of how I used to wake up 15 years ago---when I'd wake up most mornings feeling refreshed and ready to face the day just before the alarm clock went off.

I don't tell you all this to depress you or to scare you: I am very much an outlier in terms of the length and difficulty of my CPAP adjustment period. But until you are in the trenches and sleeping with a CPAP, you really don't know whether you'll be extremely lucky and be a duck or extremely unlucky and have a very long, drawn out and painful adjustment like mine. Most people fall in the middle. Most people do start to feel some improvement in several weeks to a few months. And most people will continue to see additional improvement---but often very slow and very incremental improvement---in terms of how they feel during the day for several more weeks to several more months after they first start noticing the positive changes. Some people (eventually) get to where they feel "normal" during the day---in terms of daytime sleepiness, fatigue, and cognitive functioning by the time they are fully adjusted; others never quite get all the way to "normal" but eventually see substantial improvement in how they feel and function. And a few unlucky ones never really get to where they're feeling much different in terms of daytime symptoms, but keep plugging away night after night because they know eliminating the nightly O2 desats and night time arousals is keeping them from getting worse---both in terms of day to day functioning and in terms of overall health.

Here's hoping you are a duck.

But if you're not, you have a good doctor and all of us rooting for you and we're all here to help you figure out any problems that you run into while making this crazy therapy do its magic for you.

8 1/2 hours

Other than the cessation of the nocturia which was immediate and a very gradual overall improvement in general feeling and a reduction in morning headaches, 18 months.
I had other issues though. I had fragmented sleep due to pain. I didn't have the overnight miracle that I had read about.
Getting used to using the mask and machine was not difficult. I was lucky in that area. I was unlucky in the fact I carried baggage to bed that cpap was not designed to fix.

Hey Robysue... I really related to your post this morning. After being compliant and doing pretty well (according to the sleep study clinic), I woke up with one of those morning headaches and was about ready to toss the machine and mask out the window. I feel frustrated and annoyed.. woke twice to pee, had a headache, the mask got all screwed up and I finally gave up about 4:30 a.m. Usually, I put it right back on. Not so this morning.

Instead of getting easier... I'm starting to resent the da*n thing. I'm wondering if my mask is leaking... keep hearing this swishing sound... and don't know why. The people at the DME are no help, as you already know. I see my doctor on Wednesday and hopeing she'll be able to shed some light on this. As childish as this may seem, I don't want to be one with the machine. I just want to use it and not be concerned about what the numbers mean... trying to get use to the machine along with learning what the numbers mean is more than I want to deal with right now.

Sorry for the Sunday rant... just not a good morning...

BlackSpinner wrote:8 1/2 hours

Just doesn't seem possible. Do you feel this good every day? Any secrets to share?

ems wrote: BlackSpinner wrote:8 1/2 hours

Just doesn't seem possible

She was one of the "overnighters" that I turn pea green with envy when I hear how quickly they saw remarkable improvement. We all read about it and think wow, I bet I do too.... wrong..most of us aren't so lucky.

Though I do think that a positive attitude goes a long way but it needs to be tempered with a realistic attitude too.
We didn't get this way over night and we can't really expect to fix it over night either.

ems wrote:

BlackSpinner wrote:8 1/2 hours

Just doesn't seem possible. Do you feel this good every day? Any secrets to share?

I put that mask on deciding that I would wear it for 2 hours, next thing I knew it was 7:30 am and I felt more awake and aware then I had in months. BUT on my sleep study my SPO2 went down to 56% so my body just grabbed this thing like a lifeline that it needed.

However I also know a lot of relaxation and self hypnosis techniques from 20 year of migraines. I know all the tricks my mind can play and vice versa.

The day after the first night I was helping run a xmas fair, I was not looking forward to it but I had no headache and kept running all day much to my surprise and enjoyed myself.
It took a few months before I felt 100 times better, but in the first week people were commenting on how much better i looked (more colour and less black shadows and more smiles). Within 1 month I was doing my art work again, within 2 months I was researching and debugging rather complex software.

BlackSpinner wrote: in the first week people were commenting on how much better i looked (more colour and less black shadows and more smiles). Within 1 month I was doing my art work again, within 2 months I was researching and debugging rather complex software.

I wouldn't wish my own experience on my worst enemy: In the first week people were commenting on how ragged I had started looking (pale, ashen sunken cheeks and significant eye shadows that were not there pre-CPAP and more yawns and blank stares than smiles). Within 1 month, I had had to resign as chair of an important department committee and was begging off any kind of meetings or service roles that I could, within 2 months I was a total basket case both at home and at work.

Like Pugsy, I'm green with envy whenever I read stories like BlackSpinners. And it's my sincerest wish that all newbies turn out to be ducks like BlackSpinner.

robysue wrote:

BlackSpinner wrote: In the first week people were commenting on how ragged I had started looking (pale, ashen sunken cheeks and significant eye shadows that were not there pre-CPAP and more yawns and blank stares than smiles). Within 1 month, I had had to resign as chair of an important department committee and was begging off any kind of meetings or service roles that I could, within 2 months I was a total basket case both at home and at work.

After reading the above, it's amazing to me that you stuck with it! I don't think I'm as bad as you were back then, and I'm going to try and chalk up last nite as just one nite in the life, if you get my drift...

Going now to get my machine and mask out of the garbage.

Don't know if you have a Bass Shoe Store where you live. But, their shoes are in the $85.00 and up range. Just bought a pair at Ross for $15.00! It's the little things, ya know?

Just bookmarked your blog... thank you. And thanks to all!

What particular machine are you trying to get? Did they say anything about why it wasn't covered?

Sadly, I am not a duck. Not even close.

Celebrating the small successes along the way is important, as well as hanging out here and reading what others are doing. Learning and absorbing has helped me sooooo much in the adjustment period. Three weeks in, and I'm using it about 4-5 hours a night (and really not sleeping much without it, just not sleeping much period.) It's better than depriving my body all night every night.

Baby steps!

ems wrote:

robysue wrote: In the first week people were commenting on how ragged I had started looking (pale, ashen sunken cheeks and significant eye shadows that were not there pre-CPAP and more yawns and blank stares than smiles). Within 1 month, I had had to resign as chair of an important department committee and was begging off any kind of meetings or service roles that I could, within 2 months I was a total basket case both at home and at work.

After reading the above, it's amazing to me that you stuck with it! I don't think I'm as bad as you were back then, and I'm going to try and chalk up last nite as just one nite in the life, if you get my drift...

Yep, things were pretty grim back then. What kept me going quite frankly was a husband who was more than willing to do everything he could to help me get through the tough times, a lot of help and sympathy from folks here, and a big dose of plain old stubborness: I simply did not want to think of myself as a "quitter." And I also knew myself well enough that "taking a break from the machine" for a few hours or for a night or two wasn't going to be the start of a long slippery slope to noncompliance---no, I knew I was teetering at the edge of a cliff with the rocks of noncompliance at the bottom. And that if I gave up even for one night in those early dark days that I'd be pushed over the edge and never be able to face trying to put the mask back on my nose again.

Just bookmarked your blog... thank you. And thanks to all!

Glad to hear you find it useful. It is part of my way of "paying it forward" as my family says: Thanking those who have helped me so much in this struggle by being willing to help others in theirs.