Positional Apneas

For me, sleeping on my back in any form, including a recliner, would be disastrous for my oximetry.

But:

**its the major events that wreak havoc on how i feel in the morning, not necessarily AHI. If my last REM period is full of events with escelating AHI the last hour, then i feel nasty even if my AHI averages out to 2.0 overall.

**If i sleep too much or out of circadian then it screws me up. I have another health condition which causes me to take to the bed during
a flare, and the frequent naps mess up my nighttime sleeping, like last night when i finally slept from 4-8 am and it was the worst overall
snoring sequence.

*left side or right side or stomach doesnt make much difference to me, but rolling onto my back, which im not aware of but probably happens, no doubt seriously ruins my overall AHI

sleepinow wrote:You should purchase a very soft bed so that the hip does not get too much pressure against it. And I too find myself on my left more for lowet ahi and then flip sides onto my right. My back is the worst. Almost everyone has higher ahi on their back. You need to find the best way to find support for your sides. Once you do that, you can expect lower ahi and feel better

I don't mean to be contrary, but I have a bad back and sore hips and legs and for me a soft mattress always makes it much worse. We got rid of our soft mattress after doing a lot of research, reading and lying on beds in stores all of town and ultimately purchased a very firm iComfort Genius Mattress (gel memory foam) earlier this year, and it has given me a lot of relief from back and hip pain, by cradling and supporting my back and hips. It gives me relief similar to wearing a back brace but without the squeezed-in feeling.

Regards, Nate

Regardless of what mattress you choose, here is a good independent website to get info from:

"Sleep Like the Dead" at

http://www.sleeplikethedead.com/mattres ... -foam.html

Pain meds working slept a total of 8 hours last night with only two to three wake ups.

Felt a little better today.

Getting there.

Rich

Many years ago (before the CPAP machines became a common cure for Apnea) the folk remedy for snoring was to sew a pocket in the middle of the back of a pajama shirt and put a tennis ball in it. It was a crude way to prevent my dad from sleeping flat on his back, but it worked. If the pillow doesn't work for you, consider this as an alternative.

The pillow is indeed working very well.

As is the pain meds.

The only risk I feel with taking one pill at night is getting the habit of waking up nearly pain free.

Last night I got a low AHI of 2.40 and it was Hypopnea of 2.25 and CA of .15 with one wake up and a total sleep of 6:39:44.

I feel fairly good so far.

Rich

Guest wrote:Many years ago (before the CPAP machines became a common cure for Apnea) the folk remedy for snoring was to sew a pocket in the middle of the back of a pajama shirt and put a tennis ball in it. It was a crude way to prevent my dad from sleeping flat on his back, but it worked. If the pillow doesn't work for you, consider this as an alternative.

Well I now am getting better sleep: at lease by the numbers…I seem to avg 2 to 3 hours per sleep cycle and I am keeping my AHIs below 10 and most of the time below 5.

And I am getting a total of 8 hours out of say 10 hours of “bed time” with only one hour of wake time like this.

BUT still I am run down a lot of the time.

Yesterday I still was nearly dead to the world and only with Herculean will power did I get any work done.

So I have the hours and the AHIs looking good so I must be missing good sleep.

What is needed for good restorative sleep?

Rich

Well I now am getting better sleep: at lease by the numbers…I seem to avg 2 to 3 hours per sleep cycle and I am keeping my AHIs below 10 and most of the time below 5.

And I am getting a total of 8 hours out of say 10 hours of “bed time” with only one hour of wake time like this.

BUT still I am run down a lot of the time.

Yesterday I still was nearly dead to the world and only with Herculean will power did I get any work done.

So I have the hours and the AHIs looking good so I must be missing good sleep.

What is needed for good restorative sleep?

Rich

Have you had your thyroid and other blood work checked for something that could be unrelated to Cpap?

Well they told me of Sleep apnea and possible Diabetes at the hospitable...so by the lack of any other reports I feel safe that there is none...

Rich

Why not ask if your thyroid was looked at (name of the test is a TSH).

I was having chest pain and 225/100 Blood pressure, then I was recovering from a quad bypass: I was told they did a lot of blood work and testing...

They told me I was borderline Diabetic and that I HAVE sleep apnea.

I am fairly sure if I had any other problems that could show up they would have told me.

IE: My colestal was also borderline as well.

Rich

OK after a week of better sleep I think I can say the battle is over.

Each day I feel better. It still is a up and down thing but the highs are getting higher and the lows less low.

I hope these threads and my battle/journey will help others.

I know all of the help and suggestions I received from here and another site and from the Vender I got the second hand system from all made this possible.

Rich

Well this looks like my final report.

I got a 2 inch memory foam pad for my bed and it fixed (nearly) my problem with shoulder and hip pain.

So I am now sleeping from 3 to 4 hours sleep sessions with only two wake ups per night and 8 to 9 hours totally per night.

My AHIs are running under 5 per night and almost zeros a lot of the time.

So I am settled in for the long haul.

Thanks again for all the help.

Rich