I did a sleep study and learned I was having 74 events per hour. They sent me home at midnight, saying they already had all the data needed and then some. That was 15 years ago, and I haven’t slept without CPAP since. I think of the machine as a dream machine, as I’m having dreams again.
I didn’t want a CPAP. I got a sleep study. Study says I need to use a CPAP or substantially increase my risk for a heart attack. I got a CPAP. Now, putting on the mask is as comforting to me psychologically as a warm blanket is physically. I actually have two. One lives in a nightstand, the other in a suitcase. And as a medical device, it doesn’t count as a carry-on when traveling by plane.
Bumping this thread since I’m joining the club. I was diagnosed with a sleep study showing I was having 37 apnea events per hour. Just like the other Dopers, I was being drowsy all the time for years, to the point that it cost me a job. A CPAP is already being shipped to me and I’ll get it next week.
Are any of you able to sleep on your back while using the CPAP? Is that the standard posture by default? Because I had read elsewhere that sleeping on your back is the posture most likely to make one suffer apnea and you should lie on your side instead, yet I’ve seen lots of CPAP photos and drawings that show users lying on their back. Plus, for me, I have some spinal and neck issues that make lying on my back the only comfortable position for me, the only one I can fall asleep in.
Anecdatum: I can only fall asleep initially on my left side, and normally I wake in the morning in the same position with the CPAP having recorded multiple leaks; but if I need to get up, for some odd reason I will go back to sleep on my right side, and somewhere along the line I move to my back — and during the second sleep period the machine records no leaks. Which makes no sense, and YM will most likely V.
(It is true that sleeping on one’s back is the “ideal” posture for obstructive apnea, since that allows gravity to assist the process. But that’s what the CPAP/BIPAP is there to counteract. About the only thing you might want to consider is a headband to make sure your mouth remains shut.)
Now that would give me suffocation nightmares! My nasal passage are small and often get stuffy. I breath much more easily with my mouth open. I always open my mouth when exercising even modestly, and usually do so when sleeping. When i had an endoscopy, i was relieved to notice that it didn’t interfere with breathing through my mouth.
There are folks on CPAP forums who use denture adhesive and tape to seal their mouths to get zero leaks.
Needless to say this is very much not advised and completely unnecessary since some amount of leaks are perfectly natural, expected, and really do not matter.
If you’re a mouth breather and can’t train yourself to sleep with your mouth shut chin straps are perfectly acceptable.
I can’t. I snore so violently on my back it instantly wakes me up again. And that’s with a full face CPAP. I sleep on my front, turned a little bit to one side or the other, with my face mostly downward buried between pillows. I think this is only possible with CPAP, as otherwise I couldn’t breathe.
I’ve never heard it said about CPAP, but it’s a significant detail: with CPAP you don’t need any other access to air, you can breathe very well no matter how deeply you bury your head.
As to pictures of people using CPAP, I think it’s some dumb advertising trend. People are wearing fancy pajamas, covered in layers of thick expensive blankets, with multiple huge pillows, and they have the hose running downward over their torso. You can’t turn over this way! I keep the hose pointed up over my face and hanging in the gap between mattress and headboard.
Joining in. I did a home sleep study a couple of months ago. 78 events an hour (I think I win!). Normal is 5. Oxygen dipped down into the 70s.
It was severe enough to also warrant an in-lab study to determine ideal CPAP settings, which I did night before last. It’s pretty weird; words and berries all over the place, if you want to pee you have to say so out loud (“we’ll be listening”), video monitoring, and my tech had to come in a couple of times to adjust my mask or reattach a sensor. I didn’t sleep all that well because of the weirdness.
But when I slept, I slept much better. They’re ordering the machine, and hopefully it will be in soon.
Mine was all done by the department of neurology.
(Both make sense; apnea is a breathing issue, but sleep is a neurological one.)
There is also central sleep apnea, which I have. There are several root causes (including high altitude); IIRC, in my case the sleep doctor suspected a problem with the feedback mechanism which monitors the CO2 level in the bloodstream and signals the brainstem to breathe.
89.5!
Or, you know, you can breath through your mouth and get enough air. It’s not that i need to learn to breath through my nose, it’s that my nose doesn’t always admit enough air. When I’m not exercising vigorously and my nasal passages are clear i can breath through my nose just fine. Using a chin strap to hold my mouth closed would be dangerous. On a bad night i might suffocate. Although I’d probably wake up in a panic and rip off the chin strap, first.
I have a friend who is a mouth breather and uses a CPAP, who has a mask that covers his mouth as well as his nose, so he can use the CPAP.
That part wasn’t for you!
I got to remember to use ***!
oh. sorry. it was part of a reply to me, so i assumed it was directed towards me.
I use a full face mask (and have since 2012 or so).
I use a CPAP mask style that I believe is called a nasal pillow. It allows me to sleep in any position I find comfortable. I have never been able to sleep face down, but left side, right side, and on my back are all in play, sometimes all three in the same night.
I started off with a full face mask, but then switched to the nasal pillows. But I then found out I was waking up with an extremely dry mouth because of mouth leakage. So I then had to use a head strap.
Interesting, even if I go to bed with some slight nasal congestion or stuffiness, the positive pressure clears it up in a few minutes.
But I still have the full face mask as a backup in case I ever have a severe cold and can’t breathe through my nose at all.
Ideally I fall asleep on my back as it’s the best position for my bad neck. But like Otto, I mostly want to fall asleep on my left side. I hope I fling myself to my back in my sleep, and usually I do.
I also use the nasal pillow.
I use a mask that covers my mouth and also has two holes on the top that blow into my nose. I was skeptical that it would work, but it does. I’m not sure what that kind of mask is called.
I know it’s not a full face mask because I used to have one of those, years and years ago. Back then, the rubber was stiffer and I had to put a bandaid on the bridge of my nose to keep it from rubbing a sore there. This one doesn’t touch the bridge of my nose.
For those of you who have spouses:
Does the mask stop you from snoring, or just force air through? If you ever watched the show Loudermilk, one of the characters gets a cpap and still snores, just sounds like snoring into a series of tubes.
What is the sound like? My wife already suffers from insomnia, so adding more noises to the room is unlikely to make it better. I realize this doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get tested for treatment (I definitely snore) but I want some facts going in.