CPAPtalk.com

There will be as many experiences as there are experiencees IMO. You will have to see how it affects your treatment personally.

Hi Ronnie,
I drink a bit now and then. I find that if I go to sleep "under the influence". I end up waking up more often...more fragmented sleep. I've never personally noticed a lingering effect into the next day like you described. Moderation is the key and sounds like you aren't overdoing it.

So how are things going otherwise? Are you getting the BiPap to synchronize better with your breathing?
Jamis

I used to sleep terribly after drinking alcohol but I find now with my CPAP most of the time I get a pretty good night of sleep regardless of how much I drink or didn't drink. The CPAP is preventing apnea events in my case I assume. That's it's job after all and it seems to work for me. Cheers.

I would suggest using an oximeter in your test.

I find this whole CPAP stuff to be so moralistic.
Have a drink if it helps you relax.
If you are dependent on alcohol then stay away from it.
CPAP should make your life better - not make you feel like you must become a monk or a nun to live your life.
Don't spend too much time getting "advice" from people on an anonymous network.
Live your life as best as you can - with or without CPAP.

My husband is like you, except his crappy feeling lasts like a week but he has to get completely wasted which only happens once every few years. A couple of beers and he's fine... But mixed drinks and shots really do a number on him I believe he asked his doctor once and was told it was due to dehydration caused from the alcohol but I wanna say the doc was just guessing and wasn't giving a medically regarded comment

Back in the days when I would crash in youth hostels, I know booze makes the airway more relaxed and increases the snoring -- even of young fit people.

First of all there are only two chemicals that can feed the brain and they are alcohol and one of the three of glucose fructose or sucrose (two of which make up the other). The body can fuel its self with either and alcohol bypasses most of the Krebs cycle and avoids use of lots of oxygen.

Alcohol is several types of a relaxant and they don't all work the same way.

You may find that you sleep better with one glass of wine a night. You may find that two is worse than none but better than one and far better than three. You might find none is best. If you have a recording CPAP machine, you can run these stats yourself and find out but consider that your not likely to have heart rate data.

You also need to consider what is a normal serve of your beverage of choice. For example, are your best results 2 standard drinks which is bigger than a glass of wine yet less than two real pours? A while back some academic idiots decided that a "standard drink" was something that no one in the world drank but put their academic stamp of idiocy on it and governments around the world smiled and agreed. Those that say drinking red wine for the heart say one is ok but almost every one of them say two isn't.

Alcohol has second factor is that is nice clean energy that gets stored nicely as fat. One of the first places that most people store that fat is in the areas of the throat that is key to sleep apnea.

Lots of people on CPAP (and with other repository issues) drink way too much. The brain can adjust to cope with more of its fuel from the alternate fuel that that is only a short time solution. Once a body get used to that, turning it off can be difficult or deadly. If you drink every day, get medical advice before dropping that habit. Less than that and skipping more days should be a good thing.

Ya, I think I just need to do this for the long term, lose some weight, and regardless, NOT feed the cycle in any way.

I have been going like this for years and didn't even know what the problem was, tired days, zombie like, doing things like eating comfort food or having a drink to try and make myself feel better when I felt horrible.

I realize now that it just perpetuates the cycle and keeps feeding it.

Hi Ronnie,
I drink a bit now and then. I find that if I go to sleep "under the influence". I end up waking up more often...more fragmented sleep. I've never personally noticed a lingering effect into the next day like you described. Moderation is the key and sounds like you aren't overdoing it.

So how are things going otherwise? Are you getting the BiPap to synchronize better with your breathing?
Jamis

James - to answer your question, pretty terrible. I am trying to tweak the machine to get it working with me. I thought it was helping but over the last few nights what happens is I wake up way too early with the mask on and can't get back to sleep with it on, so, like today, I take it off so I can sleep in my stomach and then fall asleep, but for the last 2 days I've done that I've felt terrible. Today I finally got out of bed at like 11:50 after going to bed the night before around 1am. I was in zombie mode for about 2 hours and then decided to tweak the machine and put in on straight cpap mode and tried to nap, till like 5pm, and STILL feel like hell.

I really DESPISE this f------ disease. I am such an good natured, energetic and enthusiastic person when I can get a normal nights rest but when I feel like bloody hell, I literally HATE life. Like right now.

What was happening before was in APAP mode the machine would fight me breathing, I would start to breathe a little slower when I would start to fall asleep and next think you know the damn machine is blowing air into my mouth when I am trying to exhale and it basically just keeps me from falling asleep.

So I tweaked it from 16/12 or whatever it was on to 15/15 and it started blowing too much air at me, making me feel like, about every minute or two, that I had to burp. That also made me NOT fall asleep, so I tweaked it to 13/13 and realized that, I think that's a bit too low because I can actually tell when I stop breathing at that setting.

It's really weird. I don't think my problem is airflow at all. I literally think I just stop breathing for some apparent reason, like my body or brain hits a certain point that just forgets to keep breathing normal. So on 13 I felt like I was running out of breath a lot. So tonight I plan on doing 14/14 to see what happens.

I VERY MUCH need to get this sorted out before my new job starts. I almost had to work today, but they decided not to open up yet, which ended up being fortuitous for me, because I would have been sh!t today anyway, but they will be opening any day and I need to be sleeping normally.

Ronnie,
Sorry to hear that. This xpap thing is hard enough with a Doc and proper sleep study and DME. And you're trying to do it completely on your own.

One thing these machines do is to blast air trying to maintain pressure when there's a leak. I've mentioned before that the mask fit is the key. Don't keep cranking up pressures...that just makes leaks harder to manage. Pick a mode and pressure and stick with it. Have you tried the T shirt gasket trick? I don't mean to nag, but it really helped me with leak issues.

It does take time and persistence. Explore local resources...there may be a support group or something like that.
Take care,
Jamis

jamiswolf wrote:Ronnie,
Sorry to hear that. This xpap thing is hard enough with a Doc and proper sleep study and DME. And you're trying to do it completely on your own.

One thing these machines do is to blast air trying to maintain pressure when there's a leak. I've mentioned before that the mask fit is the key. Don't keep cranking up pressures...that just makes leaks harder to manage. Pick a mode and pressure and stick with it. Have you tried the T shirt gasket trick? I don't mean to nag, but it really helped me with leak issues.

It does take time and persistence. Explore local resources...there may be a support group or something like that.
Take care,
Jamis

Nope - haven't tried that. Is there a link to this t-shirt trick? I don't think the machine is leaking when it happens but, ya, maybe. I notice sometimes if I'm wearing the mask it does start to leak out of my face and I have to kind of adjust it a few times and then it stops.

Ronnie,
Use search when questions arise and you'll usually find many threads to read.

I cut my gaskets extra large with a fairly small nose hole. Easier to keep in place. Just fit it onto the mask sealing surface before donning the mask. Wash after every use. Skin oils and sweat can accumulate during the night and the gasket helps by absorbing that. There are several commercial products (which I haven't tried) but the T shirt fabric works good for me.
Jamis

Here are Padacheek liners..so you can get the idea what they look like.
http://www.padacheek.com/PAC_Maskliners.html

Ronnie Libra wrote:
Nope - haven't tried that. Is there a link to this t-shirt trick? I don't think the machine is leaking when it happens but, ya, maybe. I notice sometimes if I'm wearing the mask it does start to leak out of my face and I have to kind of adjust it a few times and then it stops.

look at my post here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=74043&p=679778#p679778