How do you like CPAP?
 

I have got my own CPAP machine now and overall I am pleased with it and the results. The mask takes a while to get used to though. Sometimes I just take it off to get a break from it. Overall I feel better after using it. Your thoughts?SmileWavy

Been using one for many years, actually I'm on my 3rd. First one was replaced due to age, and second one had a recall from Philips. I'm used to it, but I prefer no mask. My insurance covers all expenses as long as i use it for 4+ hours per night for 21 out of 30 days. But I tend to take it off after 5 hrs or so. If I start snoring and wake up my wife, I put it back on. I do sleep better, and so does my wife.

I’ve been a CPAP user for years as well. If I don’t use it for some reason, I wake up with dry mouth and sore throat and am very tired.

Took 2 or 3 days to get used to it. Now you can have it right after you pry it from my cold dead face.

Hate it. Had one for 22ish years. Need it medically. It is a struggle.

I’ve been using The type that covers your nose only for a few years. I sleep better, but still wake up in the middle of the night to adjust it. Dry mouth can be a problem, but I use mouth tape for that.

I woke up one night feeling like a balloon. My nose mask had migrated to my mouth! Haha

This ^^^^. I don't use the full "fighter pilot" mask, I use the nose pillows.

I've been using a full face mask for 7 years and it has really changed my life. In the sleep study I woke to the barely-unconscious sleep state (stage 1) 18 times in 6 hours and spent almost no time in deep sleep. I never really felt rested. Now I wake to stage1 sleep 1 or 2 times a night. It's a big improvement in my life and worth the inconvenience.

Funny thing, I used to have the dream almost every night that I was awake and couldn't sleep. I would look at the clock at 11:00 and think I was lying there awake for an hour. Then I looked at the clock and it was 3:00 AM. It was exhausting and I was in a perpetual bad mood. I guess I was dreaming in stage 1 sleep and not really getting any rest. That stopped when I started using the CPAP.

Me too. Been using it for years. The nose pillows and headgear is so light I barely notice it.

But I’ve experimented with and without it, and indefinitely sleep and feel much better with it.

I tried out the full fighter pilot mask. Yikes. I couldn’t deal with that.

agreed, I used the fighter pilot mask like half a night and went back to the pillows in the middle of that night.

when I talk to "non-believers" I mention to check the obituaries to see how "died peacefully in his sleep" has decreased since PAPS have become so prevalent. funny thing is gasping for air causing heart or other failures causing death is so far from peaceful....

a friend of mine died at 39 due to what I believe was sleep apnea. he was over weight, did not live healthy and would fall asleep at stop lights and while we were watching a football game or something like that. i'm confident a PAP would have prolonged his life had he used one.

I've been using one since I retired five years ago. Just the nose "pillows", no full face mask. I've settled into a quiet "truce" with it, learning to accept its advantages while I absolutely despise wearing it. It makes a very noticeable difference in how well I sleep (not to mention my long suffering wife, and our two dogs. Probably the neighbors as well.). Which, ultimately, makes for a far better day. Its advantages are real. That doesn't mean I can't hate it.

I've used it for a few months now. The primary symptoms (snoring, not sleeping at night but sleeping the rest of the time, etc) were all fixed basically instantly, within a few days. I used to fall asleep in front of the TV basically every night, now it never happens. I would fall asleep at work every afternoon after lunch, now that never happens. I would fall asleep while stuck in traffic basically every day, now that never happens. It's absolutely frightening how often I would zonk out during the day, because I wasn't zonking out at night.


There were other symptoms that I never realized existed, which were also fixed.

For example, apparently breathing at night helps keep stomach acid from rolling back up through your esophagus at night, the air flow keeps everything kinda in place. Stop breathing for 30 seconds, and that acid works it way up. I was having increasingly bad instances where acid was coming up, anywhere from heartburn to squirting into my mouth and nose to vomiting.

CPAP ended that 100%.

Surprisingly, I also don't get up to pee every night anymore. It was like clockwork, I'd get up at 2 or 2:30 to pee, every night. No big deal, it happens. But, turns out I was only getting up because my body was all stressed from not sleeping. I never get up to pee now.

Additionally, I use a full face mask (for now). The Darth Vader sound actually drowns out some background sounds, which means I sleep right through the neighborhood cats fighting, or the guy next door starting his truck in the morning, etc.

Finally, or course, my lifestyle efficiency has increased, because I'm not spending 2 or 3 hours a day trying just to stay awake. I would literally be put into a zombie state, where I would be half awake sitting at my desk and pretty much unable to break out of it. I'd spend an hour sitting there, just trying to wake up enough to get up and walk around. Very unsettling, very destructive.

About 10 years ago, I started feeling really tired in mid-afternoon. It was a real problem when on-site at a client location. Then I was diagnosed with sleep apnea about 7 years ago. And I was told that a CPAP would fix my problem. No joy for 6 years, still felt tired. Last January I changed from a Pulmonologist to a Neurologist who changed my diagnosis to Hypersomnia with Sleep Apnea. He added a prescription for Modafinil to help me stay awake. Hated the stuff, really messed with my sleep. On a follow-up visit he bumped my CPAP pressure to make sure the airways stayed open. My AHI numbers dropped significantly and after a week or so of good sleep, the tiredness went away.

I use a nose only, Pico mask. It was irritating the nostril openings after a few months of use so I added a RemZzzs liner. Much more comfortable and I think I get a better seal with it.

I’ve had my Resmed machine for several years. How do you adjust the air pressure?

I have hypothyroidism (thyroid not working) and one of the symptoms is fatigue, among others. No matter how well I sleep at night, I’m still tired during the day. On meds and see the doc for a checkup in a couple of weeks. I hope I can get this worked out, because I fight it all day and I’m worthless on the weekends.

I have a Phillips CPAP, so not familiar with the Resmed. But a quick Google found this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcPp1i0XuYU

Thanks. My Resmed is an S9, so not much adjustment I could find.

I've had a sort of 'central apnea' since at least high school. I apparently stop breathing for a minute and then gasp for breath. I also have some broken nose that can't move air well.

Right around age 50 I started waking with concussion symptoms that started getting worse. Something with age I wasn't tolerating the asphyxiation any more.

Got diagnosed and given an airsense 11. I can't breathe through nose so wear the 'chuck yeager'. The machine and I fought every night, mask was hovercrafting off my face so I had to cinch it super tight. I needed it but it would fill my stomach with air and cause me to vomit. Not nice to wake up puking out your nose into the mask.

Dr let me try an aircurve 10 vauto. Is like the airsense but its super sensitive to your exhale. Airsense is 'cpap' - continuous pressure. The aircurve detects your breathing and drops pressure when you try and breathe out.

Anyway, the switch to aircurve was a miracle for me, I'm in heaven now. Apparently the usual is for dr to prescribe the airsense and if customer has a problem they throw an aircurve at them. Insurance wants them to try the airsense since its cheaper.

I just got my father to go through the aircurve trial and he can't believe he didn't get one sooner.

That’s the problem I had with the fighter mask. I had to keep it super tight to try and keep it from flapping and waking me up. But, no matter how tight I made it, it flapped. That and being a side sleeper, it just didn’t work.

I wanted it to work, because I have narrow nasal passages.

In addition to the ResMed CPAP I wear a BreatheRight nasal strip as I have a deviated septum on one side of my nose. The nasal strip allows me to breathe more freely through both sides of the nose.

Overall this combination has worked for me. I have the kind of mask that fits over the nose and mouth. Also as mentioned above CPAP can reduce acid reflux.

Yeah, sorry to be a broken record here, I'll try one more time:

If you haven't been able to get a face mask to work, and you need one, then get your doctor to prescribe you a bipap machine like the aircurve 10.

The 'C' in CPAP means 'continuous pressure', it is like running a shop vac into your mouth. The fancier resmed 'CPAP' vauto machines actually have a small amount of pressure reduction for exhale, but that relief is small and wasn't nearly enough for me.

BiPAP is bivalve, the machine is built to honor an inhale and exhale pressure. Mine is set to 8(cmH2O) input and 4 for my exhale. The transition from inhale to exhale is imperceptible to me. Is magic.

Moving to BiPAP totally solved my issues with the chuck yeager mask.

I delayed getting a machine for a decade because I thought the 'sleep center' was totally an insurance scam. There's a big profit incentive for them to give everyone one of these devices. Turns out I was wrong, the machine is a huge huge help for me, I should have done it years earlier before it became an actual crisis.

To get the bipap machine I had to go back and insist on another face to face, spoke with tech and then doctor and got up in the office manager's face. I was suffering and I wasn't going to let them forget it. They had me try a chin strap, various nose fittings but nothing worked. I was skeptical that the machine would help but it COMPLETELY fixed my problem.

They had to handle all the insurance stuff and because my previous contract was so new I had to pay about $500 to switch machines but well worth it.

Average... guess it depends on your problem and its severity.

Like others, I just can't shake the feeling it's partially snake oil, even though my own experiments with a pulse oxymeter tied to my phone do show it works. The sleep doctor felt like a scammer and right off the bat told me he was "bumping my numbers" to qualify for treatment!!!

I did sleep with a finger pulse oxymeter with and w/o CPAP and you can tell my O2 bottoms out 5x a night without, and heart rate correspondingly increases. I'm not seeing the "41 events per hour" the carpet-salesman-sleep doctor sold the insurance though. But CPAp smoothes out the sleep cycles and I dream more.

I guess my disappointment with CPAP lies with all the promises that it would make me feel rejuvenated, sleep 10x better, more refreshed, regrow hair etc. (lol).. Reality for me is my O2 levels are better so I probably have more REM sleep, but I do not feel ANY difference before /after, with without. None. Nada. The graphs look good but I wasn't tired before, no less tired now. I stuck with it with the idea it was good for my heart.
I think the fact CPAP forces me to sleep on my back (not my normal position), the nose pillow/gear gets reduced airflow when side sleeping, means I wake up more often at night than without CPAP - so in the end the # of times CPAP wakes me up is more or less equal to whatever no-sleep I was supposedly getting before.

My wife likes it, no snoring, no more big breath catching a couple times a week that freaked her out. Also no more teeth grinding/TMJ. I use it at home, but I stopped taking it on vacation (like I'm gonna die without it), because it's a PITA... For some folks it's life/sleep changing. For some less so. I think I stand on the wrong end of the spectrum, you may love it. I'm gonna focus on losing weight (main cause of apnea) and getting rid of it.

If you don't think the CPAP is doing you any good, are you pulling your sleep numbers off the device? For life changing help, your AHI needs to be 5 or under.

I have a Phillips CPAP and they have a bluetooth app I use to pull my numbers. Alternatively, you can pop the SD memory card out of the CPAP and use the PC app Sleepyhead. It appears it works with all the devices mentioned in this thread.

Once you know your numbers, you can start adjusting your evening routine for better sleep. In my case, I dropped eating a snack between dinner and bed.

HTH

Thanks for the tips Halm ! The doc is pulling #s and I am at or under 4 now. Supposedly from 41!! You'd expect I'd have superpowers from such a success? I'm just saying it changed nothing for me, which is puzzling if I was truly at 41. I was not tired before, at all, nor am I less tired now or noticed more energy.

I snore less, check, I scare my wife less with the "occasional" sharp air intake (a few times a month according to her). I grind no more. I am not sure what my "actual" numbers were before (the sleep doc doesn't show you the test device printout, just tells you, and I as I said I felt the wrong vibes when he said he'd bump me up to qualify). My experiments sleeping without CPAP with a pulse oxymeter do show I drop below 90% a few times a night (4-5 in 6 hours from memory) but not match the 41 number he gave me, and I suspect they greatly exaggerated my initial condition to sell the product/service.

All in all, I'm sure this helps people who need it because you can't argue with positive pressure opening airways, and my own experiments do show it "smoothes out" the night (until I wake up and yank it off in semi-sleep around 4am anyway). Just sayin' I can't be sure how bad I needed one in the first place (and if sleeping badly with a cpap is better/worse than feeling like I sleep well without, but possibly kick started my heart a few times) - so "perceived" benefit to me is 0. And that place gave me really fraudulent vibes, like when you're a hammer everything is a nail, you know ? Generally if you consult a surgeon they'll recommend surgery, if you consult a sleep doc will they tell you 'nah you're good, go home?" .

I'm keeping it on because it was hard to get used to, and in the hope there is a "non-perceived" benefit until I lose weight. That's all I'm trying to say. No doubt it helps folks. Maybe not me though.
If this thread stick around I may do another round of tests with the connected pulse oxymeter, w andw/o CPAP... It shows drops <90% and heart rate.

It’s not just the flapping, but I’m a side sleeper and the fighter mask pushes against the pillow, making it uncomfortable. I tried it on the advice of one of my home buyers. He said it was a game changer for him.

Edit. I agree with you, that I should talk to the doctor about the BiPAP machine.

There is an implant that uses nerve stimulation to open your airway during sleep.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/dont-like-cpap-an-implantable-device-is-another-option-for-your-sleep-apnea/

No further knowledge about it, just thought it was interesting.

I went for sleep apnea surgery. Fixed.

Bought my own CPAP machine. Not covered by insurance

Hard to believe insurance will pay for the implant.... Wondering the price point and maintenance required.... I guess all out of pocket

The AHI is the sum of the number of apneas (pauses in breathing) plus the number of hypopneas (periods of shallow breathing) that occur, on average, each hour.

Pulled that from some website. Best not to assume everyone knows every abbreviation.

I have a resmed. I'm on my 2nd machine and it has changed the way I sleep. I have a spare tank, hose, nose piece and AC adapter just in case. I take it when I travel - very dependent on it.