last night i slept 11 hours with NO wakeup - ahi 0.2,

a "high" night for me given that for the last week every night was 0.0 .

No wakeups or trips to the bathroom although i had a cup of camomile(sp?) tea right before i went to sleep.

I was particularly exhausted yesterday having taken my sister to see her doctors ( she is pretty much paralyzed) and i was in a lot of physical pain all day so i think that explains the long sleep - but i don't think i've slept that long straight since i was a teenager.

I was diagnosed about 13 months ago with apnea and i've been through Cpap, autoCpap, Bilevel, AutoBilevel, Asv, and now finally S9 auto Epap ASV.

Last night, I also used the ultimate chinstrap, a custom made dental appliance, no mouth tape and a nasal mask ( not a pillow).

I raise this here for those newbies who find that this isn't working for them - believe me, it didn't work for me either, i hated it and seemed to be making no progress at all.

In general, it seemed that what i was doing was making things worse than ever.

Eventually however, after trying everything that didn't work, i finally found a combination that worked for me. When it wasn't working i tried to remind myself of what Thomas Edison said to people about his ongoing failure to find a substance to use in electric light bulbs:

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

So the key to getting it to work was to keep at it and make us of the advice of the people here - without this forum i would have given up after the first couple of months

I loved reading this post! I am so there with you, it has taken me more than four months to get from using my BiPap machine for an hour while watching TV to last night, keeping my mask on for the entire 7 and a half hours I was in bed. I feel so much better today than I have in a very long time. Been through four masks, and still looking for my Holy Grail version, but right now my sleep therapy is manageable. I didn't think I would ever adjust to this machine but I am starting to and getting ready to reap the benefits.

Good for you for sticking with this! And I love that quote from Thomas Edison.

Great News!!!
Another success with an ASV!

That is wonderful jtm! Your persistence is great inspiration for us newbies!

A big congratulations!

I hope to do that some night.

John,

Big time congratulations. Your story gives me hope that eventually, I can be a success story.

49er

reading this is the sort of thing I need - I've tried CPAP once, and hit it with the kind of enthusiasm you'd reserve for a child in a toyshop, no discipline, no plan, just a false perception that from night one that was it problem solved, so I crashed hard of course- it made me worse, what little sleep I was getting was taken from me, nearly lost my job, my life on the motorways - but yet also knew that this disability at the back of my throat wouldn't go away. To live with sleep apnoea i.e. knowing about it and not treating it, is the worse, because you're wired towards something happening at night, you put your head down expecting the violent shake awake, you think about how bad you'll do at work the next day and you can't take a sedative because that'll relax you further. You're stuck in a world of fear and pain, you dread bed time, but you have no answer or solution.

So like most newcomers I'm reading things like this and I'm trying again. In my mind you cannot afford to not get this right. half life of a bad tempered angry exhausted world for the rest of your days or 11 hours sleep a night, it's a re-education that needs doing.

to read things like this is to read what's possible when compliance issues are taken care of. It's not easy with a full time job but I get days off I can practice. I'm really going to work hard towards that day.