CPAP and other changes

I've been using CPAP therapy since December 27, 2011 and thanks to this forum, it is going well. I've had my own share of glitches but by reading posts here I've figured out ways to make it all work. The only problem I was having is that some days I actually felt more tiredness than before CPAP but not exactly sleepiness. I thought it was my anti-anxiety medication and I adjusted the time I take it and I thought it helped but I still felt tired. Apparently with more quality sleep my body had made additional changes and it took me a while to figure it out. For many, many years I've taken thyroid medication as I have hyperthyroidism but I only have one symptom (food digests too quickly) and I've taken the meds so long I didn't even think about it when trying to figure out why I was feeling tired. I'm sure you know where this is going. I stopped taking the hyperthyroid medication because apparently it was making me have hypothyroidism. After about a week I started feeling like myself again and not tired nor sleepy during the day. I will discuss the medication with my doctor when I go again but right now I feel great and I'm sleeping through the night. I don't even remember when I did that last. So, if you are on CPAP and you don't think it's doing what you expect it to do, you might want to look at your medications and discuss it with your doctor. In the past my endocrinologist had told me that if I felt like I didn't need the medication it was OK to stop it but I just never felt the need to stop it. I wouldn't recommend changing any regular medications without discussing it with your doctor.

So glad you're doing better!

Great points! Medications are definitely a huge part of what affects us. Adjusting my thyroid med by HALF a pill a week made a huge diff. Just make sure you're discussing med changes with your doc first.

Something about actually sleeping makes us process our meds differently as well as making our organs function more efficiently so that maybe we don't need as much meds as before.

You should still check thyroid function with the standard blood tests regularly (2x/year) to see how you are doing without the meds. When cpap therapy is successful, many people find they don't need anti-anxiety and depression medications because their systems are working better due to good, restorative sleep.

Good for you...