How old were you when you got your CPAP?

chunkyfrog wrote:I got my first at 62, nearly three years ago.
It's true I felt much older then, and younger than that now. (guitar riff)
I suspect I have had OSA since before cpap, but treatment has never been better than it is now.
What is in the past must remain there, or it will poison the future.

"No, you're never too old to Rock'n'Roll if you're too young to die."

I got my machine when I was 74 years old. Now that I know about it I had it back in 1977, I was 40 then. I was in the hospital for neck surgery and I had to stay on my back and I'd wake my self up sounding like a hog rooting and gasp for air.

I was 48 when I finally got diagnosed and put on PAP therapy. I have had snoring issues most of my life and had the same major problems/symptoms (all of the usual suspects ) that accompany SA/OSA for at least 15 years before diagnosis; the last 5 - 6 years were the most severe. I am so grateful to be using such a life changing treatment and still be around for my family and friends. Denial and fear have cut short so many precious lives .

John

I was diagnosed just before my 66th birthday last Sept. I'd been waking up gasping for air for about a year. Went to a lecture on strokes. The Dr giving the lecture was only 39 when he had a severe stroke. Up until that point, he said he didn't take his own sleep apnea seriously enough. Something he said about it resonated with me. The 'Gasping' for air. The waking up multiple time and the deep exhaustion all the time. OMG! That's me. I'd better find out about this now. Thankfully the Dr has made a very difficult recovery from his stroke (he's now 43) and through a lot of hard work is now able to practice medicine again. He said even now, its a struggle to use his cpap machine everynight.

32

10 years ago at 54 and 3650 days of use ago.

I was diagnosed last Nov at 58 and have been enjoying cpap therapy for the last two months. Sleep quality and snoring had been deteriorating over the last few years.

I was 48 - and have had problems breathing since I was a small child. . . I was thrilled to finally have an answer and help.

I got mine this past September at 39. I was told by a doctor about 4 years prior, when I was in the hospital after a surgery that I needed a sleep study. I ignored it because I wasn't ready to deal with it yet. I'm so glad that I finally dealt with it! I'm one of the lucky ones that took to therapy right away, and from the beginning I've slept 7 plus hours a night with it. I love my machine and will never, ever sleep without it again!

I got CPAP last August (2012) at 61.

I had complained about tiredness for years, but my doctor blamed it on side effects of the blood pressure medication that I was taking ("See, its right there on the list of side effects.")

It wasn't until my wife told him that I stopped breathing at night, that he ordered a sleep study, and found desat down into the 60's.

Six years ago at 48.

I was 64.

Just about exactly a year ago, when I was 64 years old. Now I've just retired, and Jan. 25 (a couple of days ago) was my 1st year anniversary of using CPAP. My wife was telling me for a while that she would hear me not breathing for a while at night and I should look into it. She had a cousin who died of sleep apnea at age 39, and didn't want to lose me, that was strong motivation for me to look into it. It was all news to me, I wasn't tired, etc., just knew that I snored from my wife telling me that *smile*. So I"m a relative newby at this, but have been doing fine for the last year. Always trying to improve things, though.

My father snored, too, so I expect that he very likely had undiagnosed and untreated sleep apnea. May well have contributed to his earlier than normal demise.

Why so many late decades? I was 27 when I got my first machine. I was sent out for the study because I had insomnia and my doctor thought I still looked tired even though I was no longer anemic.

tetragon wrote:Why so many late decades? I was 27 when I got my first machine. I was sent out for the study because I had insomnia and my doctor thought I still looked tired even though I was no longer anemic.

Because when we were your age, sleep labs were few and far between. Me and my sister had symptoms of sleep apnea since we were children -doctors just shrugged their shoulders and told my mother she just wasn't a fit parent. Times have changed, thank goodness.

Even today - doctors don't know what to look for. It's still a new science. I was complaining of headaches, craving sugar, waking up breathless at night, tmj and insomnia for three years before an oral surgeon sent me to the sleep lab.

History
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_apnea

The clinical picture of this condition has long been recognized as a character trait, without an understanding of the disease process. The term "Pickwickian syndrome" that is sometimes used for the syndrome was coined by the famous early 20th century physician, William Osler, who must have been a reader of Charles Dickens. The description of Joe, "the fat boy" in Dickens's novel The Pickwick Papers, is an accurate clinical picture of an adult with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome.

The early reports of obstructive sleep apnea in the medical literature described individuals who were very severely affected, often presenting with severe hypoxemia, hypercapnia and congestive heart failure.

The management of obstructive sleep apnea was revolutionized with the introduction of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), first described in 1981 by Colin Sullivan and associates in Sydney, Australia.[58] The first models were bulky and noisy, but the design was rapidly improved and by the late 1980s CPAP was widely adopted. The availability of an effective treatment stimulated an aggressive search for affected individuals and led to the establishment of hundreds of specialized clinics dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. Though many types of sleep problems are recognized, the vast majority of patients attending these centers have sleep-disordered breathing.