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I just started my cpap six days ago and haven't had a big adjustment with the mask. I can go right to sleep. However, I wake up after 4 hours and then can't go back to sleep and end up taking valium. Getting off of valium is how I ended up with a sleep study in the first place, which discovered that I had mild sleep apnea (pressure I need is 7 to control AHIs). Sleep doc said the reason I was waking up was the sleep apnea, but now it should be controlled and I was hoping I would start sleeping through the night (this did happen one night). Am I just impatient? I know I have just begun and maybe my body is so used to waking up after 4 hours, it is just a habit it will take time to break?

Everybody is different. It is too early to tell about your treatment and what you are experiencing is "normal". I find that I only need 6-7 hours of sleep to be functional, so my first blush is that you aren't that far off. In due time, you'll get used to wearing the mask and you get the amount of sleep your body requires. Mask up and watch tv, listen to music or read. This will help you adjust to the mask.

Sheriff

Wantok wrote:Am I just impatient? I know I have just begun and maybe my body is so used to waking up after 4 hours, it is just a habit it will take time to break?

Probably a little bit of both.

Even under the best of circumstances sometimes the body has to break old habits and we can't do it fast enough to suit us.

Please take the time to register here at the forum if you plan to stay around and add your equipment to your profile.
Hopefully the machine you are using will provide some data and we can point you to some software to help you evaluate your data and maybe there is something on that data that points to why you might be waking up....leak or maybe a little cluster of stubborn events. It wouldn't be the first time nor the last that there was a possible reason for waking up when we don't want to.

I went to "user control panel", "profile", added my equipment and submitted it. But it isn't showing up, so what did I do wrong?

(Thanks for the comments. As I mentioned, I am not having any perceived trouble with the mask--I don't shun it or tear it off. When I wake up and pee or whatever, when I put it back on I am just laying there and can't fall off to sleep, not to mention I thought I wouldn't be waking up at all...)

Once you select your equipment, you need to click on "apply"
I actually did that--dunno if that's what happened.
Sometimes the link gets broken on equipment that is no longer sold by our hosts.

There are causes (comorbids) to having Sleep Disorders such as heart problems, Diabetes, Vestibular System collapse, ADHD, Insomnia, etc. CPAP machines are made to deal with the sleep disorders "side effects" of those underlying medical conditions and not cure them directly. But as long as these maladies exist they will interfere with sleep. However, sleep we must have, and also, sleep will give us time to treat those medical conditions.

My experience: I knew it that Valium has a long time- life cycle in the body. I would not use to help me with sleep while I started CPAP b/c of the long hangover that it would have caused me. I used short- life Benzos instead. When I started CPAP, 3 years ago for plain OSA, I started to take half a tablet of 10 mg Zolpidem at 11:30 pm as soon as I put the mask on my face. This allowed me to fall asleep within 15 min, but the sleep lasted for 3 to 4 hours. Then I got up to pee and took another half a tablet (5 mg) which let me sleep for 3 more hours. For the hangover the next morning I took two tablets of Tylenol and for the ingested air I took Pepto Bismol. After I sort of got used to the CPAP I have decided to withdraw from the Zolpidem. I think that I could do it easily b/c I kept taking a low dose all along. Otherwise, see here what would be involved in withdrawal:

http://www.non-benzodiazepines.org.uk/zolpidem.html

Presently, I take 0.5 mg of Xanax ER, once daily for anxiety. Also 300 mg of Gabapentin for sleep and my other medical condition. Usually, I sleep for 7 hours, with one or two wake ups for peeing. When I can’t fall asleep within 30 min I take 5 mg of Zolpidem, and fall asleep within 15 min. This happens, but rarely.

Hmm...don't know why your equipment didn't take once you clicked on submit...it should. Now we do have some broken links with a few of the machines but none to any masks that are offered.

For now can you just manually type it in your signature line briefly?

Or just tell me in a comment here...
having it in the signature or profile means it is there at a glance and we don't have to go back and read a bunch of posts to find out and you don't have to manually type it each time.

Wantok wrote:I just started my cpap six days ago and haven't had a big adjustment with the mask. I can go right to sleep. However, I wake up after 4 hours and then can't go back to sleep and end up taking valium.

I find that playing Spider Solitaire on my WIndows 7 machine is an excellent soporific.

I am sleeping much better on CPAP but wake once at the 3-4 hour mark every night. I fall back to sleep quickly most nights but noticed this info which I found interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep

Before CPAP my body wasn't ever getting into normal sleep cycle routines, so this does not concern me since I feel very rested most days.

Thanks for the input, all.

I take 2.5 mg of valium, when I take it, which is more or less every third night. Mostly I have just been getting up for a couple of hours and then going back to sleep for several hours sans machine usually, which makes the night very long, and I still usually nap during the day and don't have energy at night. I do think I will try and wear the mask more during the day, even though I don't feel "unfriendly" towards it. It can't hurt anything. (And I chose valium--getting off restoril--because that recommended site weans everyone off benzos with valium as the benzo of the final stretches of withdrawal.)

I will ask the sleep doc at my monthly check in. The fact that I slept for 7 hours straight ONCE in the first week--alone is amazing.