CPAP Dependancy

I have been using my CPAP for about 1.5 yrs. I know I need to wear the mask every night but there are some night I want my sleep freedom. My wife tells me when I don't wear my mask, I stop breathing, convulse and start breathing again. This happens several times a night. Before I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea, this did not happen. Is my body and lungs becoming dependent on my CPAP? If the electricity goes out, will I convulse and not wake up. Does anyone else out there have this problem? If so, e-mail me at: rob3169jr68 at y a h o o dot c o m.

No, it is not an addiction. You NEED this device to live.
Skipping nights will only harm you; the more you skip, the more damage to your heart, brain, and all your organs;
until you finally succumb to the apnea or one of the many complications it causes.
But wait! You might not die--right away. A crippling stroke is a genuine likelihood.
Imagine yourself fully conscious, but paralyzed and unable to speak.--permanently.
Your wife or someone else will have to do EVERYTHING for you. The picture is not pretty.
If comfort is an issue, perhaps you need to try a different mask.
Mask comfort is a major factor in consistent cpap use.
You need to keep trying--and try harder.
The right equipment should help.
Good luck.

Good question. My husbands sleep apnea was bad before cpap and now seems worse if he does not use his cpap. This is my own opinion but I think his body has been able to relax so much more during sleep with cpap that if he goes a night without it his body thinks it can relax like it did with cpap. Not sure if that makes since but I do know that he said he felt like he could never really relax during sleep before cpap, in the back of his mind he knew sleep apnea was a problem and kept him worried and tense subconsciously.
hope that helps

Also, we purchased a battery for his cpap machine as we love to camp, it works just fine. We charge it with our generator if we are camping with no electricity. If your power goes out the battery will last 12 hours, well that is how long ours will last. You can charge it with your car battery during the day to use the following night.

What led you to seek a test/diagnosis? Is it possible that neither of you remember precisely what your waking/breathing behavior was 18 months ago?

Is it seizure or fighting to wake up/breathe? Might look similiar....

J

[quote=If the electricity goes out, will I convulse and not wake up/quote]

No Rob, you will wake up! You can still breathe with your mask if the machine is off...give it a try, the mask has an anti-asphyxia valve that allows you to breathe and you will wake up and realize that something is wrong. If you are really worried, get yourself a battery back-up system. When I get up in the night to go to the bathroom, I don't take my mask off....and I can still breathe, come back to bed and hose up again...NO problems.

JayC wrote:What led you to seek a test/diagnosis? Is it possible that neither of you remember precisely what your waking/breathing behavior was 18 months ago?

True.

Think about being a prisoner of war for four years and being beaten every day. Your mind and body build up defenses so you do not feel the full brunt of the beatings.

Then you are rescued and return to a normal life with your family and live like that for two years.

Then someone mugs you and gives you the same type of beating you received in prison. You are no longer mentally adapted to beatings and this one seems worse than the ones in prison.

It's your choice. Use CPAP or take the beatings.

Is a diabetic 'dependent' on insulin? No, they need to replace in their body that which it cannot produce on its own. If they stop supplementation, many bad things can happen, including death. Are we 'dependent' on our eye glasses? No, but they correct vision that is less than normal in the eyes we have. If we don't wear the glasses, the world will appear less than normal.

Cpap is a 'tool' that helps stent open our airways so breathing can occur unimpeded during our sleep. It isn't a dependency... it is a necessity. If not used, all kinds of damage will ultimately occur to the body and perhaps lead to sudden death from stroke or heart attack.

USE the cpap each and every night!

Emilia wrote:Is a diabetic 'dependent' on insulin? No, they need to replace in their body that which it cannot produce on its own. If they stop supplementation, many bad things can happen, including death. Are we 'dependent' on our eye glasses? No, but they correct vision that is less than normal in the eyes we have. If we don't wear the glasses, the world will appear less than normal.

Cpap is a 'tool' that helps stent open our airways so breathing can occur unimpeded during our sleep. It isn't a dependency... it is a necessity. If not used, all kinds of damage will ultimately occur to the body and perhaps lead to sudden death from stroke or heart attack.

USE the cpap each and every night!

What Emilia said!!!

Perfect!

Have those of you who feel you've become 'dependent' on XPAP and seem to have worse OSA since starting therapy considered the fact that YES, you ARE more relaxed as you are finally sleeping deeply and going through the cycles of sleep you ARE MEANT TO!!!!?????

YES, the OSA was keeping you/me/us from going into a deep relaxing sleep which was slowly killing us.

I haven't skipped CPAP since the day I got my machine, so don't know how I'd sleep without it. All I know is that DH says I now sleep like a baby - silent, unmmoving (no RLS, or very little) and I wake feeling rested.

Btw - I am also diabetic, and regardless that I have non-diabetic blood glucose numbers most of the time - should I stop eating my low-carb plan, my diabetic numbers would return after a single high-carb mouthful of processed-sugar-starch-laden morsel.

So my philosphy for both conditions is - remain diligent with whatever keeps me healthiest. Both OSA and T2 are progressive diseases, particularly if not treated. I plan to do whatever keeps me on this side of the dirt longest

You not only have to be persistent with finding what masks, set-ups, foods, pillows, etc., etc., work for YOU, must also have an ATTITUDE - preferably a positive one that you are going to hang in there until you find what works best for you.

Cheers,
xenablue

Before cpap your body was protecting itself from the low O2 - in the same way people who live all their lives up high in the mountains are protected. The one and only benefit from having untreated OSA is that you wouldn't feel as wretched as the rest of the tour if you went to Peru to see Manchu Pichu. Blood test will show this product in your blood. You lose this protection as your treatment optimizes.

Accept the fact that as a human being you are dependent on Oxygen and require as certain number of hours of sleep and REM sleep in order to have a functioning body and brain. This is true for all humans.

We do get addicted to the adrenaline that floods our bodies with untreated apnea.
I had a low energy period after I had been on CPAP for a while.
Accidental interruptions due to power outages are generally harmless(though miserable).
I feel really crappy after; so I do not go without intentionally.

We would all like our sleep freedom, but most of us are thankful for a therapy that helps us live normal days and prolong our lives. I doubt very seriously you are having convulsions. A real convulsion would prompt your wife to call 911. What you are probably experiencing is the jolt awake as your body struggles to take a breath. If you are that concerned about what happens with a power outage, well, first of all you would always wear your mask at night, and as has been suggested you could get a battery or even a generator that would kick in automatically. Even a UPS would beep when the power went out so it would wake you up and you could stay awake until the power returned, or you switched over to your battery. I can't imagine knowing what happens when you enjoy your "sleep freedom" and continuing that behaavior after the first night.

Welcome to our community, Rob.

If you haven't figured it out yet, the members of this site are CPAP believers. You've sort of entered our Vatican and badmothed the CPOPE.

The accepted belief is that CPAP doesn't worsen your apnea if you quit taking it.

It might be good to ask your CPAP doctor. Maybe your condition has worsened or you have some other new medical problem. Something such as weight, age, genes, lack of exercise, etc. caused you to have apnea before you did CPAP. Maybe your apena is simply getting worse because of the underlying causes.

It's even possible you're developing something serious like epilepsy and an apnea event triggers it. I think this is rather unlikely, but it's possible. If you strangle an epileptic in their sleep can it trigger a seizure?

However, consider the following medical amateur's speculation.

1) You had apnea before CPAP. When you start choking because your airway gets blocked off, your brain reacts and you snort, snore, jerk around, etc. until you wake up or otherwise start getting air again.

2) You had untreated apnea for years. This happened so often that your brain stoped reacting as violently because you've gotten used to it. You're still getting oxygen deprivation, poor sleep and all the other bad consequences of apnea. Your brain just doesn't panic that much from being strangled.

3) You start CPAP. Your brain is no longer used to being choked during the night.

4) You stop CPAP for a night. You still have apnea to the same degree that you did before, but your brain isn't used to getting strangled several times a night. When you start choking, your brain reacts more violently than it did before CPAP. "Oh my goodness, I'm being strangled. Panic! Start the adrenaline pumps, boost the heart rate, struggle, wake up."

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Reacting to stopped breathing may keep you from spending a lot of time not breathing. Lying there quietly not breathing while your oxygen level drops is a bad thing.

Yes, you could have a heart attack, stroke, or whatever if you don't get your CPAP. You had that risk every night before you had the CPAP machine. Maybe you have a little higher risk now for a particular night without CPAP because your brain panics more now and pumps out more adrenaline when you're suffocating.

What kind of mask do you have? If it's a full face mask, it should have an anti-asphyxia vent to allow you to breathe if the CPAP machine stops. If you use a nasal mask, in theory, you'll open your mouth and breathe through it if your CPAP machine stops. You don't suffocate during the night if your nose clogs, do you?

"there are some night I want my sleep freedom." Yes, it's our God given right to stop breathing and convulse every so often when we want to. Each night with apnea does a little bit of damage to our bodies. Each night without CPAP gives us a little extra risk of stroke, heart attack, etc. for that night.

RobsleepapniaGarcia wrote: My wife tells me when I don't wear my mask, I stop breathing, convulse and start breathing again. This happens several times a night. Before I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea, this did not happen.

You say that before you were diagnosed with sleep apnea, this did not happen. If this did not happen, then you probably would never have been diagnosed with it.

Sleep apnea is is exactly what you said:

"It's when you stop breathing, convulse, and start breathing again. It happens several times a night."

You or your wife may not have noticed it before, or your body may not have 'convulsed' as you put it, but stopping breathing is exactly what sleep apnea is and your body will do something to wake you up (convulse, gasp, etc) so that you start the breathing again. You may not consciously know you're waking up, but your body does. Like others have said, your body is used to sleeping well with CPAP, so maybe now the reaction is amplified and more noticable or maybe it's gotten worse.

I will never ever under any controllable circumstance sleep without my CPAP. I truly hope you decide to view this the same way.

Im new to CPAP, and think Im a good deal younger than many on here, but I look at CPAP differently. I AM scared of dependency, of the impracticality of the machine, etc. I realize that to some extent in my situation, anatomy may have something to do with it. That said, I am looking at CPAP as a tool - a tool to move to a safer sleep paradigm, then move to higher activity level, then lower weight, and then independence from the CPAP.

Someone once told me that there arent any 80 year olds over 200#. That may be true, or it may not be. The reality is though that so much of this is weight related, and so much of my inability to lose weight was due to energy level and thus inability to be strongly active. Given the obesity epidemic in the USA, Id say that it is the same for most and will only be getting worse.

Besides those who are truly, genetically pre-disposed to being severely obese (Id say VERY few), most of us just have the advertiser's mantra beaten into us - "you deserve _____". We like this, in fact, we love it. We live by it, and make ourselves so obese and unhealthy (guess what, walking on a treadmill isnt going to cut it as being active) conditions, and then we are stuck on machines like this.

This machine should be a tool to help us combat the issues that keep us unhealthy, so that we can get off of it. That's my point of view. And if I can succeed win that way, Ill be happy. While I was a semi-elite athlete for a long time, I was still tired after sleep. I might just have an anatomical issue too. But if I can get back to an age-equivalent level in terms of fitness and weight, IMO, the reliance and dependency on CPAP will be much less, if any, and Ill be much more learned in how to treat the remaining issues.

I hope that others neither downplay the importance, or ignore the fact that there is a contributing factor that is in your control that can help. American diets and medical industries dont really want you to see thism but we are all empowered to get to a point of minimal CPAP dependence. Here's to getting there!