Sleep possible with CPAP machine?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

tl;dr

The reason you figit while “sleeping” may well be due to the apnea.

There are at least three types of masks - the one which covers the nose and mouth, the nose cushion, and the nasal pillow which is a variant of a cannula - it sits on the upper lip and short nipples fit into the nostrils ( about 1/16" long).

The headgear is light and flexible.

I use Rx sleeping pills, so I had no problem getting to sleep.

What I did find:

  1. I Stopped snoring
  2. I no longer “slept” until 14:00 - 15:00 - I was actually completely rested by 10:00 (I still stay up until 24:00 - 03:00

Try it - you’ll like it!

22

Warning about nasal pillows. I had facial hair the first few years I used the device so I used nasal pillows. I noticed I was developing a gap between my two upper front teeth, so I shaved and switched to a nasal mask. That was more than ten years ago, and I still have the gap. The setup I had had the hose going up the bridge of my nose, between my eyes and over the middle of my head, so my nose would be pulled upwards slightly. I think the engineering has improved to where you don’t have to have that setup to use the pillows now, but when I started that was my only option.

It still annoys me. I used to have nice teeth. Now I have a David Letterman gap.

23

I’m afraid I’ll have to be the one to poop on the party.

I hate the mofo. I’ve been using it off and on (mostly off) for 5 years or so. I cannot get used to all the gear, the blowing air, the inability to easily scratch my nose when it itches, and the constraints of the hose.

I’ve tried 4 or 5 different masks over the years. The best one is merely horrible. I have and use the ramp feature. I’ve adjusted and re-adjusted the straps.

Before I got it, a buddy of mine swore by his. He said he woke up the very first morning after getting it and felt like a million bucks.

Not me. Even after the rare nights that I force myself to keep it on all night, I don’t feel all that different the next day.

And that’s another thing. I get up to pee once or twice a night. The last thing I want to do when crawling back into the bed, half-asleep, is fiddle with a mask. So I often wear it for maybe 2 hours.

I am envious of all the posters in this thread who sing its praises. I wish I could too.
mmm

24

I think you are thinking of full face masks,but they also have this kind (which I is want I use and is much more comfortable).

Be careful, though, mask providers sometimes will only offer you one kind (maybe because they make more money on that type). You should be allowed to try different types until you find one which is comfortable for you.

Bob

Second link cleaned up.

25

I’ll be another party pooper. I have moderate sleep apnea and I’ve had a CPAP (with ramp up and moisture) for ten years but never gotten used to it. I tried it for a couple of months at the beginning, but generally slept worse with it on. I’ve tried to use the same machine off and on throughout the years, but it’s always the same.

Recently, I did a new sleep study to gauge where I’m at and to see if the technology had gotten any better. Everything was the same. As I was researching, I found that CPAPs only work about fifty percent of the time. For some it takes, for others it just doesn’t.

I wish it worked for me like it does the rest of you, but it just doesn’t.

26

You might have to go through a few different masks to get one you like. Or you might rotate between them occasionally. I don’t like the damn things but it only took a couple of days to get to toleration.

It only took one night to not feel like I had jet lag and needed to nap every afternoon. The couple of times I haven’t used it, well I felt like I had jet lag and needed to nap in the afternoon. And when I go on international trips, the real jet lag is 10x better than when I don’t take it.

27

Snoring was heading me to divorce court.
Sleep apnea was fixing to kill me.
Wife was considering up my life insurance. Rut Row !!!
Went on CPAP after a sleep study or three.
Spent years at high altitude using a straw, O2 masks or just smoking & throwing maps around.
Couple months ago, wife found an old BiPAP machine in a yard sale.
I cleaned it up and in some ways I like it better, 2 settings, inhale & exhale pressures.
Best part is it has a bigger water tank so I don’t run out of water on the warmer settings like I use in the winter.

I can not imagine my life without one or the other from here on out.

I am lucky that I have never had much problem adapting to things and methods that I must use to survive.

Several of my dirt bike buddies take deep cycle 12 V batteries out to camp and get a couple of nights worth of CPAP use before needing to charge up again. Saves my ass during a power outage also if I am where I can’t use my emergency gear.

28

CPAP didn’t do much for me; as a matter of fact, I hated it. It kept me awake, gave me headaches, cluttered up the nightstand, annoyed the cats . . . Finally gave up on it.
So now I’m looking for alternatives.

I’m glad, though, that CPAP seems to work for most people.

29

I’ve been using one for almost 20 years now. I sleep better than I ever did before and my days are also better.

It might take a little getting used to but it’s worth it.

Take it seriously; sleep apnea is deadly in more than one way. This is not some annoyance that’s being forced on you. Don’t go into it with that attitude. You will have had to get used to far worse things in life.

30

By the way I use a nose-only mask and I also have a beard. Occasionally I have to move the mask to tickle my nose or get up to use the bathroom but it’s no big deal. I can put on the mask and adjust it without ever opening my eyes. It’s all a matter of habit.

31

I have a full face mask since I have bad allergies, been using it for about 18 months. For the most part I sleep for longer periods of time without waking up. I still have bad nights where I wake up every couple of hours, nights where the mask bugs me or catches my hair and bothers me or the airflow. A couple of months of struggling to use it, it just seemed to work, now I have trouble sleeping without it.

My machine makes no noise once the mask is properly in place. When I have to get up in the night for whatever reason, I unhook one side pull it off, get back in bed, pull it back on, make sure my hair and earrings are not caught hook the side piece back up and lay back down. Not a problem at all. I rarely use the ramp feature anymore and often have to check to make sure it is on.

Funny to me, one night I kept hearing a buzzing sound, pulled off the mask turned on the light and found there was a wasp that has gotten into the tube (I hang my mask on my bedpost when not in use), he was pretty lethargic and was soon out of his misery. So now I check it BEFORE I turn off the light.

32

I’m so used to mine I’m not sure I could go to sleep without it. If somehow I’m cured of my apnea it will be a period of adjustment to sleep without it. (Likely shorter that getting to using it, no doubt)

33

Do it. I’ve been using CPAP for 7-8 years and it made a huge difference in how rested I felt.

The first few times I used it I had remarkably vivid dreams, probably because I hadn’t been getting enough REM sleep.

34

I’ve been using one for about 13 years now. Love it! I recently went to full face, and it was drying out my mouth something horrible. (I don’t like the water chamber.) Anyway, just this week I got a chin strap, and it was heaven! I don’t have to take off the chin strap to get a drink of water if I do happen to wake up.

A few weeks ago my elderly dad and I went out of town - a 365 mile drive - for two nights, and I FORGOT MY CPAP! I was so upset. The first night I couldn’t sleep but maybe an hour, around dawn. The second night I took a pain pill AND a Xanax, and was able to sleep about 4 hours. But probably no REM sleep. We got on the road home, and I was drowsy within the first 30 miles. That was a bitch of a drive home. I had to stop several more times than usual.

NEVER AGAIN! I still can’t believe I forgot it.

35

There is one detail that you should be aware of, although it probably won’t affect you. My CPAP runs off my truck battery at night. When I first got it, I had an old truck, with lousy batteries and it would drain them during the night, often resulting in the power getting shut off to the outlet and shutting off the machine. At which time I would quickly wake up from horribly vivid dreams of suffocating.

I wasn’t, I could still breath, just had to open my mouth. But my body didn’t like the sudden lack of air pressure. Be forewarned if you have frequent power outages at night.

36

Power outages are the worst. I’m so dependent on the device that we factor in two or three emergency hotel stays a year. Not that big of a deal, just annoying.

Airport security policy differs from airport to airport. Some make you take the cpap out and put it in its own tray to be scanned. Some don’t want you to take it out at all. I’ve been yelled at more than once for not doing it right.

37

You may find that if the CPAP starts doing its thing well, you will be sleeping deeply enough that you won’t move around as much.

A thread on the topic from a few years back. See my post (#18) for a fairly lengthy writeup on how to survive a sleep study.

It does take some getting used to, don’t get me wrong. I had the doc give me a scrip for a few days of Ambien - only wound up needing it a couple days.

For me, it has NOT made a dramatic change in how I feel, but I’ve got a number of other sleep issues going on. What’s annoying though is that if I doze off for a nap, lying on my back, I do notice I have a lot more trouble breathing and keep waking myself up to breathe. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do that before - so I wonder if the muscles have gotten lazy in the past 6 years.

My husband, on the other hand, was beginning to snore so badly that he was really disturbing me - and I had enough sleep issues that I did NOT need that adding to my woes. So I made him go in for a study. The clinic told him his apnea wasn’t bad enough to treat. He got a second opinion at a different clinic and they said “well, with more up to date recommendations, you definitely need CPAP”.

He actually found that when he pulled off enough weight, and a repeat sleep study said he didn’t need the CPAP any more, he found he still slept better with the damnd thing!

If you do wind up needing it, persist in trying different masks etc. until they get it sorted out, My father-in-law used to get complaints from the sawmill next door, that they couldn’t hear their equipment :smiley: Anyway, he was a poster child for sleep apnea (short, overweight, short neck, snored horribly, always sleepy) and no surprise, he was diagnosed. He tried it for a month or so, decided he didn’t like it, and returned the equipment :smack::mad:.

38

The deviated septum is why you’re a mouth breather - I also had that. I was always baffled as to why someone would use (and become addicted to) decongestant nasal sprays because I had never used my nose for breathing.

Surgery for the deviated septum sorted that out which helped a number of problems (dental issues, asthma improved), which meant that 15 years later when I got the CPAP I could use nasal pillows.

39

My snoring, especially in the last 5 years, had gotten considerably worse. My sister was a RNA at a sleep clinic and kept pushing a CPAP on me. Finally, I accepted it as the idea of doing a sleep study really scared me off (for some reason, I have a huge phobia of people watching me sleep). So, I tried it for a couple weeks and found myself aaaaalmost drifting off to sleep only to wake up right away with the mask on. I gave up. My partner was going to bed with me and leaving in the middle of the night to a different bedroom when the snoring woke him up. I was also peeing a lot in the middle of the night (I’d get to the bathroom first at least).

Then about 3 months ago I was going on a road trip with some buddies and we were renting an RV. I didn’t want to be the jerk keeping everyone up so I forced myself to keep it on every night for a weekend. It was probably the best thing I’ve done recently. A lot changed:

  1. No more snoring
  2. Fiance is sleeping through the night
  3. I am sleeping through the night
  4. No peeing in the middle of the night
  5. No feeling sleepy at work which was a real problem
  6. No need for an afterwork nap
  7. Generally just feeling well-rested
  8. Once I put it on, it’s like Pavlov’s sheep. My body knows it’s time to sleep.
40

Late 40’s, married male. CPAP user for about 6-7 years now. To be honest, it is 90% mental and 10% equipment. If mentally you are against using CPAP, convinced you cannot sleep with it, etc., then you will not be compliant. If you really want to be compliant you got to get your head around it and take control of your treatment.

That leads me to the other 10%, the equipment. Do a simple Google search and you’ll see there are a wealth of mask types/styles and manufacturers. There are also a wealth of different CPAP machines. Do some research, read online forums for CPAP users, and be specific and ask/demand you be issued the equipment you want. The DME will just try to give you their standard CPAP set-up. Personally I have a ResMed S9 Elite unit with a ResMed Airfit P10 nasal pillow mask and the climateline/slimline hose. The mask is incredibly comfortable and manages the exhale of air very well (no blowback of air into the face). The S9 and climate line prevents any condensation in the hose, and the unit is very quiet. I’ve tried full face masks and find them very difficult and uncomfortable. The Airfit P10 is my 2nd nasal pillow mask. My first was a ResMed Swift LT and I thought it was comfortable and easy to use. Then I tried the Airfit at the recommendation of my sleep doc and it was night and day improvement. The point isn’t to say you should get the Airfit, the point is everyone is different and it is a bit of trial and error to find the mask that works best for you.

As for the sleep study, you won’t sleep much and it won’t be because of the CPAP. You won’t be able to sleep because there will be 1,739 different sensors and straps wired to your scalp and body. Sleeping during a sleep study is very difficult. But they need surprisingly little sleep to get their readings so you’ll be fine.

Some general thoughts:

You’ll learn how to manage the hose, etc. I am a very active sleeper, I change positions many times a night. At first it was a bit of a problem but with time it became a non-issue. At first I found it helpful to route my hose up and over the headboard so it was coming from above and down to my mask on my face. This kept it out of the way of my body.

The first couple weeks I would occasionally get a very painful bloated feeling from air going into my stomach. Again, this goes away as you adjust to the CPAP.

If you get a nasal pillow mask, you’ll need to learn how to keep your mouth shut while sleeping. This isn’t hard to do but it just takes time to get your body trained to keep your mouth closed while asleep. Some recommend a strap but I tried it and found it very uncomfortable and not very effective.

Make sure your CPAP machine supports ramping. This feature will start the airflow at a fairly low level and ramp it up to your prescribed volume over a period of time. Although I probably don’t need ramping anymore, I still use it. I think mine is set to reach full volume at 10 minutes. You may want to start with 20 or 40 minutes. This really makes it easier for some people to fall asleep before the leaf-blower starts cranking at full strength. :wink:

Get a humidifier chamber with your CPAP. It’ll make a lot of difference in your comfort level being able to introduce some humidity into the air flowing through your mask.

Good luck!

MeanJoe