Sleeping with a CPAP machine

[d0gbreath]

Two years ago I had to admit myself to the ER for an infection that I had. They put me in a bed and gave me pain medicine and a relaxant. A little later, a nurse asked me how I was doing. I told her that I was sort of drifting in and out of sleep. That's when she said: "It sounds like sleep apnea to me."

That hint stayed with me so I told my primary care Doc that I thought that I might not be sleeping well. He prescribed a sleeping pill and said that he would refer me to a sleep specialist. The sleep center called me and had me stay over a couple of nights while they analyzed my condition. I stopped breathing 192 times the first night that I stayed there. The second nice they equipped me with a device that juat covered my nose. Worst night of my life. Every time that my mouth opened, the machine would blow a strong air current out of my mouth which caused my mouth to dry out and woke me up.

Then they had me come in for training on how to use the machine and fitted me with a small mask that covers both my nose and mouth.

Last Saturday night was the first night that I used it, so it's been almost a week now. What it does is adjust to my breathing pattern, ramping up over a twenty minute period. It also has a water tank for a user adjustable humidifier.

I cannot believe how much better I look and feel. I feel 20 years younger. No more getting up at night to pee. Just 8 hours of the deepest sleep that I have ever known. My eyes look different. REM is unfamiliar to them. The machine makes me breath when my system forgets how.

I guess I've spent the last 40 years without a good nights sleep. It's probably going to take more than one week to get me normal again.

Hooray for modern medical science! I would advise anyone with snoring and breathing problems during the night to have themselves checked out by the pros.

Sunday I'll start my prospect period for BACA MC. They're also are going to audition me for an original Heavy Metal Rhythm guitar spot in a band that some of the bikers have established. I woke up this morning ready to do all that, and make it look easy.

 

[ecofarm]

Misread title, thought it was about a new baby.

 

[rocket88]

Misread title, thought it was about a new baby.

I thought that was a terrible thing to call your wife....

 

[AlbqOwl]

Two years ago I had to admit myself to the ER for an infection that I had. They put me in a bed and gave me pain medicine and a relaxant. A little later, a nurse asked me how I was doing. I told her that I was sort of drifting in and out of sleep. That's when she said: "It sounds like sleep apnea to me."

That hint stayed with me so I told my primary care Doc that I thought that I might not be sleeping well. He prescribed a sleeping pill and said that he would refer me to a sleep specialist. The sleep center called me and had me stay over a couple of nights while they analyzed my condition. I stopped breathing 192 times the first night that I stayed there. The second nice they equipped me with a device that juat covered my nose. Worst night of my life. Every time that my mouth opened, the machine would blow a strong air current out of my mouth which caused my mouth to dry out and woke me up.

Then they had me come in for training on how to use the machine and fitted me with a small mask that covers both my nose and mouth.

Last Saturday night was the first night that I used it, so it's been almost a week now. What it does is adjust to my breathing pattern, ramping up over a twenty minute period. It also has a water tank for a user adjustable humidifier.

I cannot believe how much better I look and feel. I feel 20 years younger. No more getting up at night to pee. Just 8 hours of the deepest sleep that I have ever known. My eyes look different. REM is unfamiliar to them. The machine makes me breath when my system forgets how.

I guess I've spent the last 40 years without a good nights sleep. It's probably going to take more than one week to get me normal again.

Hooray for modern medical science! I would advise anyone with snoring and breathing problems during the night to have themselves checked out by the pros.

Sunday I'll start my prospect period for BACA MC. They're also are going to audition me for an original Heavy Metal Rhythm guitar spot in a band that some of the bikers have established. I woke up this morning ready to do all that, and make it look easy.

Sleep apnea is a bonafide medical condition and has no doubt shortened many a life before medical technology caught up with the remedy for it. My hubby was a major league snorer which sometimes made nights miserable for me for many years. And it got worse as he got older plus he was having alarming symptoms. I would notice that he stopped breathing at night and he was always so tired--he couldn't sit down for more than a few minutes before he would nod off. His job required a lot of driving and I was terrified he would go to sleep behind the wheel. And he finally went to a sleep clinic for testing.

The verdict that he was waking hundreds of time each night--usually not to the point he would remember it but enough to disturb his rest. Like you he had to get up several times during the night. And he would wake up unrested and drag through the day. The CPAP fixed it all. He slept so quietly it took weeks for me to get used to it and stop checking on him to make sure he hadn't died. He slept through the night, woke up rested with no more daytime drowsiness. His renewed energy level was off the charts. He no longer uses a mask but just the nose device though he does strap it on so it doesn't come loose at night. But he wouldn't think of sleeping without that machine. It was truly a miracle and a blessing in so many ways.

 

[WCH]

Are you a heavy snorer?

 

[d0gbreath]

I'm quite fortunate that I never fell asleep while driving. I would have these little episodes that I couldn't figure out, at work and while driving. Usually around Thursday or Friday. It was just my brain going to sleep but I would fight it and it would go away for a while.

Another symptom is sleeping way too long on the weekends. I would fall asleep on Friday night around 8 o'clock, but I'd sleep until 11 o'clock on Saturday morning. That's 15 hours. Then I'd sleep eleven hours on Saturday night. It was basically ruining my weekend days. and it would still leave me tired all of the time.

I'm really looking forward to energetic weekend days that start early in the morning.

 

[d0gbreath]

Are you a heavy snorer?

Yes. But now, if I still do it, it's under my mask and doesn't bother anyone else. My wife said it's like sleeping with an aquarium in the room. I call it my 20,000 leagues beneath the sea diving apparatus.

 

[EnigmaO01]

The wife is on a CPAP machine and even has a discussion website she goes to for CPAP users.

She can plug ap into her computer to see how she slept too. Anybody else do that?

 

[WCH]

Yes. But now, if I still do it, it's under my mask and doesn't bother anyone else. My wife said it's like sleeping with an aquarium in the room. I call it my 20,000 leagues beneath the sea diving apparatus.

You probably don't.
My oldest daughter found out she needed a CPAP and elected for the surgery rather than having to indure the machine. It was successful.

 

[d0gbreath]

The wife is on a CPAP machine and even has a discussion website she goes to for CPAP users.

She can plug ap into her computer to see how she slept too. Anybody else do that?

The machine records everything onto an SD card. So yes, it can be pulled out and put into a computer slot. You bring it with you when you go to your subsequent appointments.

You can also see it on the machine's tiny screen if you want to.

EDIT: I too should look for a discussion website.

 

[d0gbreath]

You probably don't.
My oldest daughter found out she needed a CPAP and elected for the surgery rather than having to indure the machine. It was successful.

I'm happy for your daughter.

I am a big snorer. My first wife couldn't even sleep in the same room with me.

No one has brought up a surgery option. What exactly do they do surgically to make you keep breathing all night?

 

[WCH]

I'm happy for your daughter.

I am a big snorer. My first wife couldn't even sleep in the same room with me.

No one has brought up a surgery option. What exactly do they do surgically to make you keep breathing all night?

In her case, she had excess tissue in her throat. UPPP

American Sleep Apnea Association | Surgery


Her husband sleeps much better.

 

[imagep]

Almost three years ago I realized that I had the sleep apnea. Went to my doc, who told me that I could do my own sleep study by renting equipment from a home medical equipment company. She had to write me a script for the equipment, and I paid cash out of my pocket for the rental as I have a high deductible insurance policy.

The people at the home medical company sorta freaked out when they asked me for my insurance information and I told them that I would just pay cash. They said "if you dont have insurance how are you going to pay for this "they and I told them again: "cash out of my wallet". They almost acted as if no one had ever directly paid for medical care before. Anyhow, it was less than $150 to rent both machines.

Anyhow, I had this little clip thing that monitored my blood oxygen level, and a cpap machine. I used both for a week, returned them, the rental place pulled the chips and sent reports to my doc.

the result of the blood oxygen device indicated that I was sufficating every few minutes. Which explained a lot, because for several years I thought that I was having panic attacks while sleeping. What was actually happening is that I wasn't breathing, and my bodies response was to awaken gasping for air.

The CPAP machine did me no good. My nose was so clogged up with a sinus infection and enlarged turbanates, and a deviated septum (probably from having my nose broke several times as a child playing sports) that it couldn't force the air through. The chip in the CPAP indicated that I wasn't breathing more often than I was breathing. I went to an ENT who immediately diagnosed my turbanate issue and deviated septum, and I had outpatient surgery the next week to correct both problems. When I awoke after surgery, the doc was furious that I didn't tell him that I had a sinus infection. I didn't even know that I had a sinus infection, I guess I have had a sinus infection for most of my life, I just thought it was normal.

Anywho, after the surgery, and after loosing 50 lbs, and after getting rid of the infection, I sleep much better now. I still often take a spray decongestant, and I don't believe that he removed enough bone to fully open up my passages, but I'm still much better. I may still go back this winter and see if he will operate again and remove some more bone (he removed the bone under my turbanates to make them smaller).

I believe that if I wouldn't have had medical treatment, I probably would have not lived much longer. I was to the point where I was seriously considering suicide, although I wasn't particularly depressed, and I often attempted just to stay up all night because laying in bed and waking up gasping for air every minute or to was pretty miserable.

Anyhow, I think it's worth looking into surgery. Sleep Apnea is caused by lots of different things, and many of them are correctable by surgery. I'd much rather do a one time outpatient surgery than to have to use a machine to sleep for the rest of my life. Almost 100% of the males that I know who are near my age use a cpap. It's like it's almost the norm these days.

And...don't assume that your family doctor is going to give you good advice about this. You need to see a specialist. The first specialist I would go to wouldn't be a sleep doc (they just want to charge you out the arse to give you a script for a cpap, rather than to find the root cause of apnea). Go to an ENT doc first.

Also, some causes of sleep apnea are correctable by loosing weight, every single person that I know who uses cpap is overweight. When we get fat, we get fat all over, we even get fat in our nasal passages and throat and mouth and that can contribute to constriction of our nasal passages and snoring. Shortly after my surgery I still didn't have much energy, went back to the doc, and discovered that I had a half dozen other medical issues. Immedately went on lots of prescriptions, but most of these conditions were weight related, even though I wasn't super obese.

As I started loosing weight and eventually exercising, I was able to go off of most of the medications. I feel like superman now, and people even tell me that I look like a super-man.

 

[Eric7216]

Interesting.
I have used a CPAP machine for about 5 years. Don't notice any difference. I continue to use it simply out of fear that I may not wake up or that I will have a stroke during the night. I sleep about the same number of hours. I still am somewhat sleepy throughout the day and drift off to sleep for very brief periods.

I understand that most who get CPAP machines stop using them.

 

[Peter King]

I too have sleep apnea. I too had problems at work, I sometimes actually almost fell asleep during the job.

I then was sent to a sleep center, there they found out I stopped breathing 66 times an hour, so in an 8 hour night I stopped breathing 512 times. Now with the device it is close to zero.

But it takes getting used to a bit. All in all I am really happy I have it now, I am a lot less tired now.