Greetings

Hello!
I've just found this forum from a link from an article I found via Google. Thought I'd join up.

I'm 39 years old, Australian, and one of the (2%?) few female sufferers of OSA. I'd been going to a doctor regularly for help with my morbid obesity (nothing helped until recently). October 2003 I really started noticing fatigue, which I'd attributed to the flu but it got noticably worse -- and then mid-November 2003 I got plantar fasciitis in one heel, but the fatigue I'd been complaining of set my doctor on a bit of a wild goose chase because he thought the pain in the heel and the fatigue might be related, but they weren't. Then it got so bad that I was nodding off during the day and just spending my weekends sleeping, so he referred me to a sleep specialist, who took one look at my symptoms and said, yes, you need to have a sleep study, this sounds like sleep apnea.

Fortunately, the Australian government's tax incentive for people to get private health insurance (we have a hybrid system here, both public health care and private insurance to cover extras) meant that I'd joined a private insurance fund, which meant that I could get the sleep study done in four weeks time at a local private hospital instead of waiting three months for a bed in a public hospital which was further away anyway. I was astonished when I read this article <http://www.webcommentary.com/asp/ShowAr ... ate=050118> just now which mentioned that a sleep study cost $2500! My out-of-pocket expenses were $80 for the hospital bed. Amazing difference. Makes me very glad I live in Australia.

So, it was June 2004 when I had the study, and it confirmed that I had sleep apnea -- very severe sleep apnea -- waking up an average of 40 times an hour (oh my). In July I had the second study to fit my mask and calibrate the right pressure for my CPAP, and my sleep apnea was so bad that, even though I was waking up in the night to change masks to try different ones, even that one night I felt so much better in the morning it was amazing; I didn't feel like one of the living dead any more, just "normally" tired, if you see what I mean. Ten days later I got my machine.

Had the usual teething problems, waking up a couple of times every night (I mean, naturally with OSA I'd been waking up before, but I hadn't been aware of it) but after I got a humidifier things settled down.

Right now, I'm feeling as if... it's not quite enough. Like, it's ten million times better than it was without the machine, but I'm still feeling tired. My sleep specialist said when I saw her in November, give it another three months and we'll see if we need to do another study to re-calibrate your pressure setting (my setting is 12). So I guess it's wait and see.

My sleep speicalist also said that I'd probably been suffering from sleep apnea all my adult life -- but I guess it had been coming on so gradually that I didn't notice the fatigue until it got really really bad. Not having a spouse, there wasn't anybody around to complain about snoring.

I also know I have a tendency to push myself too hard and not get to bed early enough, so I guess I'd better be more disciplined about that -- is that what some of you folk call "sleep hygine"?

Hi RubyKat,

Welcome to the forum!
I think you might have seen already how encouraging this forum can be. Scary too at times, when you see people having problems.

You've been on treatment longer than me (only since mid-November). I too feel so much better but also feel like there's still a long ways to go, especially to get used to the treatment. And I too don't take care of my habits, in that I stay up too late when I have to get up so early. Not wise. But then I remember how before all of this I didn't have the energy to stay up too late and get up so early, so I guess things are improving, huh? I too had gone back to the doctor complaining and was told I just needed to adjust. At first I didn't believe the doctor, but now I do. He had told me that when I wake up in the night finding myself fighting the mask and the breathing, to just try and relax for awhile before going back to it. I thought that dumb until I saw it really helped. Seems the more I relax and just accept the bad nights with the good, the better things get.

Have you had any success controlling the weight issues since being on the treatment? Hope so, because I sure need that encouragement!

I guess we should try and not be too hard on ourselves. Easier said than done, and I need to take that advice myself. But there's no need to beat up on ourselves, but I guess try to remember we're improving. We need to remind each other. Thanks for reminding me. I guess the single most important thing is to not give up on the treatment. Improve it yes, change it if we need to, but don't stop. I'll remind you if you remind me!

Hang in there!

Linda

LDuyer wrote: He had told me that when I wake up in the night finding myself fighting the mask and the breathing, to just try and relax for awhile before going back to it. I thought that dumb until I saw it really helped. Seems the more I relax and just accept the bad nights with the good, the better things get.

Heh, when I first started, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to cope with a nasal mask, I thought I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth closed, that I wouldn't get enough air through my nose. But I adjusted, and I'm glad I don't have a full-face mask, because that would be even harder to fit than a nose-mask. It's a bit harder anyway, because since most sleep apnea sufferers are men, the average mask is just too big for the smaller female face. Still, I have the smallest mask they had, and it's okay. Red marks on my face every morning, but, hey, being morbidly obese, one don't have no truck for vanity.

LDuyer wrote:Have you had any success controlling the weight issues since being on the treatment? Hope so, because I sure need that encouragement!

The key, for me, wasn't actually the sleep apnea, though the breakthrough happened at around the same time. It was basically when a good friend (who, though I didn't know it at the time, also suffers from sleep apnea) finally managed to persuade me that It Wasn't My Fault -- that being morbidly obese is not something caused by greed or laziness or lack of will power, but is caused by any number of things that are simply physically wrong with one's body -- blood chemistry imbalances and so on. Once I got my guilt out of the way, I started thinking about how to have a Cunning Plan to fight my sneaky body cravings and I devised my own Eat Good Stuff Diet, on which I've managed to lose almost a kilogram a month (except for Christmas, oh well). I'm still not well enough to get back to trying to do regular exersize, because I have problems with both my feet (one foot has a bad heel, plantar fasciitis which is notorious for taking a long time to heal; the other foot has the Ingrown Toenail From The Black Lagoon, which is still not better yet, despite two operations on it). And I've just recently got tendonitis in one shoulder from putting too much weight on my cane, so I'm caneless and not painless at the moment.

Still, it is encouraging to know that One Is Not Alone.

Kat