Hey! We don't mind at all! That's part of what this forum is for! Keep right on posting.


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Some people are like Slinkies... Not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.
Resmed VPAP Auto. Humidaire 3i, Simplicity & Micro masks, ResScan 3.4, S8 ResLink, Embla oximeter.

Well, last night was terrible.  Every time I would start to go to sleep I would snap awake.  I barely slept at all.  I don't know what was wrong.  Also at about four in the morning my mask started leaking terribly and I had to fool with it for a long time to get it to stop.  It had been perfect for two full nights so I don't know what happened.

Today I have to take care of my two daughters while my wife is at a college class so I am here with a one and an almost four year old and feel absolutely terrible.  I am shakey and weak.  I think this morning is as close to a full-on panic attack that I have ever had.  I really felt like I was about to collapse.  I was literally trying to get the one year old changed and fed before I died so she could hold over until my wife got home.  I am just now starting to come down off of this feeling.  

I have been checked out by the doctor and cardiologist and they say my heart is fine but it is hard to get that into my head when I have these feelings with pounding heart and mild chest pain.  I am really hoping the CPAP treatment clears this up but when I don't sleep it doesn't do any good.  At least I got oxygen all night.

Saturday night was much better.  I took a couple Tylenol PM and fell asleep about 10 and didn't wake up the first time until 3:30.  That is the first time I have made it that far before waking up the first time.  

A few posts back I pointed out that I couldn't get the new comfort gel mask I ordered to work without leaking.  Last night my wife assisted me with trying the boil and fit method again and got it to work fairly well.  I am glad about that because at a pressure of 15 it is so much easier to breath out against than the nasal pillows it isn't even funny.  My AHI was 2.9 last night with the comfort gel mask so it couldn't have been leaking that bad.  I did wake up at about 5 and the mask started leaking when I moved but I was able to fool with it for about ten minutes and get it good enough.

The one thing that was really weird was I was getting sprayed by water from the exhaust port.  I had heard of rainout from inside the mask but I haven't read about misting out of the exhaust port.  I might try moving the humidifer down from 2 to 1.  I might not need as much humidity with the over the nose mask compared to the nasal pillows shooting air straight up my nose.  

I prefer the nasal mask when the pressure is lower when ramping since the head gear is so much smaller but when it gets all the way to 15 it is really blasting through that thing and hard to breath against even with c-flex turned up all the way.  With the over the nose mask I don't even feel like I need to use the ramp.

Had my best night so far last night.  AHI of .9

That comfort gel mask sure is easier to breath out against than the direct nasal mask.  I think I need to move the humidity back where I had it because my sinuses seem pretty bothered today even with using saline spray and a nasal rinse.

dae3dae3 wrote:

Had my best night so far last night.  AHI of .9

That comfort gel mask sure is easier to breath out against than the direct nasal mask.  I think I need to move the humidity back where I had it because my sinuses seem pretty bothered today even with using saline spray and a nasal rinse.

Super! Congratulations!   Yep, I had to adjust my humidifier too, it was getting too warm around my nose and there was lots of condensation in the whole appliance.

The last two nights I have slept well until 4 AM when I woke up and stayed awake until my alarm went off at 6 AM.  I haven't been too tired during the days though so I must have slept pretty well when I was asleep.

Also, my mid to upper back has been absolutely killing me.  I don't know what that is all about.

dae3dae3 wrote:

The last two nights I have slept well until 4 AM when I woke up and stayed awake until my alarm went off at 6 AM.  I haven't been too tired during the days though so I must have slept pretty well when I was asleep.

Also, my mid to upper back has been absolutely killing me.  I don't know what that is all about.

Dae3, it's good that you have slept the last 2 nights.  I too have been awaking early (4:30 - 5:00, I go to bed at 10PM) and I am wide awake with lots of energy.  I too have lain in bed into my normal time to get up.  I think that our bodies are starting to get a lot of REM sleep we are slowly by surely refreshing our energies. So once we get caught up on REM our bodies will allow us to also get the other sleep.  Just my theory.

Have you had back problems in the past?  Are you sleeping in a different position.

Regards,
Aarondawg

I have never had back problems.  I have switched from a stomach sleeper to a back sleeper to accomodate the mask.  I have a select comfort bed and adjusted it to be slightly firmer after the first day of back pain and the next day was a little better but today has been terrible.  

On top of everything else I think I have developed a ragweed allergy.   I went for a quick walk before dinner when I got home today and my eyes were burning and watering so bad I could barely see.

I been having the same problem! Wide awake at 4:30 at which point I check my AHI. I able to go back to sleep, but here's the weird thing, between 4:30 and 6:30 my AHI jumps by about 2 points! I guess it's from the more REM sleep you get in the morning.

Today my AHI was `4 @ 4:30 and ~6 @ 6:30. If I do the math my AHI is 10 for the last 2 hours. Perhaps i'm waking up because the pressure isn't high enough at that point to prevent that many apneas.

_z


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"Try. Fail. Try again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett

zaquon wrote:

I been having the same problem! Wide awake at 4:30 at which point I check my AHI. I able to go back to sleep, but here's the weird thing, between 4:30 and 6:30 my AHI jumps by about 2 points! I guess it's from the more REM sleep you get in the morning.

Today my AHI was `4 @ 4:30 and ~6 @ 6:30. If I do the math my AHI is 10 for the last 2 hours. Perhaps i'm waking up because the pressure isn't high enough at that point to prevent that many apneas.

_z

Zaquon, what is AHI?  Sorry, this is all new for me.

It's sort of interesting that we are all waking up around the same time....  

Dae3Dae3, I think that your (ours) body is going through a healing process and it's having to adjust to it.  I have had some digestive problems over the years (Had the endoscopic test, biopsy and found nothing) but since I have been on CPAP, it's really feeling stranger and it comes and goes, especially if it get really hungry.  From what I have found, the Apnea were causing the digestive issues, because Nexium and other drugs did nothing for it.  Hopefully, as our bodies heal the damages caused by sleep apnea, things will settle down.

AHI = Apnea/Hypopnea Index. It's the # of Apneas and Hypopneas you have on average an hour.

If your machine is data capable it's smart enough to know if you're not breathing or having obstructed breathing. I've had no luck sleeping well until I got a data capable machine. I can now tweak my therapy to bring that number down (with the advice and consent of my doc, of course )

_z


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"Try. Fail. Try again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett

Last night was probably one of the best nights so far.  I slept until 5 AM when my wifes alarm went off and kind of half drowsed until 6 when I had to get up.  I firmed up the select comfort mattress one more setting and my back has been pretty good most of the day.  It is starting to hurt again as the evening progresses.  AHI was only 1.8.

I decided to take a second try with the nasonex to see if the headaches and anxiety side effects were really caused by the drug and I could breathe much better last night.  Unfortunately, I had a pretty good anxiety attack and a headache started to come on this afternoon.  It was pretty discouraging.  I felt pretty good all day and then at 3 in the afternoon it was like somebody flipped a switch and my skin was crawling and I thought I was about to have a heart attack.  At least I didn't get palpitations.  Those really freak me out.  I popped a Xanax and calmed down after about a half hour.  I still have the residual rib cage soreness that always follows those things however.  I might ask the family doctor if she will let me do another cardiac stress test just for my own peace of mind.  It has been three years since I had the full cardiac workup so I don't know if the insurance will pay for it or not since I was cleared at that time.

I have follow up visits with both my sleep doctor and family doctor tomorrow.  I am going to ask the family doctor if there is something to replace the Xanax that I can take every day for while.  She doesn't want me to take Xanax every day and I don't want to either due to addiction worries.  I probably average about four or five days a week that I feel I need one and the dose is only .25 mg.  I am starting to walk and go to the YMCA and think my health anxiety will improve greatly once I manage to get into decent shape so my heart rate doesn't jump to 125 bpm when I walk up the stairs.  

I also have an appointment with the DME to try to find a better mask.  I am starting to get used to the one I am using but I am going to see if I can find one better.  The comfort gel mask I ordered over the internet is going to go back.  It blows air into my right eye and I have not been able to resolve this short of over tightening that is uncomfortable.  Good thing I bought the return insurance.

I had my followup appointment with my sleep doctor today.  I finally got the results of my original sleep test and WOW.

AHI: 106.5
Sleep Stages:
1 = 12.6%
2 = 84.5%
3 = 0 %
4 = 0%
REM = 3%
REM Latency 167 Minutes

Average Apnea time was 21.5 seconds with Oxygen desaturations down to 80%

I am so glad I didn't see this until I was getting treated.  I would have been terrified of going to bed.  

I am seeing my family doctor later today.  I think some of the problems I have been having for the last few months are caused by high blood pressure.  I was feeling anxious today and my blood pressure was 168/100 at the sleep doctor.  As I think back when I was having a really bad day back when this all started my lower number on my blood pressure was at 98.  I think the anxiety that comes out of nowhere for me is when my blood pressure spikes.  I spoke to my Mom today about what she feels when her blood pressure gets high and she said she gets the same anxious feelings.  Also the headaches and the nosebleed I had last week may be part of this.  The nosebleed came on after one of the worst anxiety days I have ever had so I think it may be related.  After  I speak to my family doctor about this I will post back here what she thinks about this.

The good news is that I went to my DME this morning and got a new mask.  I tried a Swift LT and it is very comfortable and I couldn't make it leak even by really pressing on it from the side.  I know that the real test is sleeping with it but it seemed much more comfortable and the hose has a swivel unlike my current mask so it shouldn't pull as badly.

hi,

just tuned in at the end.  I too get bad anxiety on Nasonex.  From what I hear anxiety is caused by apnea, so im guessing with time you'll feel much better.  in the meantime, let the process take it's place, and don't let yourself get upset about the small setbacks, they mean nothing in the big picture.

itsfinallynotinmyhead wrote:

hi,

just tuned in at the end.  I too get bad anxiety on Nasonex.  From what I hear anxiety is caused by apnea, so im guessing with time you'll feel much better.  in the meantime, let the process take it's place, and don't let yourself get upset about the small setbacks, they mean nothing in the big picture.

Thank you for your comment regarding small setbacks.  I have been on different CPAP masks 3 weeks as of today and I am going back to my original one for good tonight.  Last night I tried a new nasal mask and it did not allow me to turn on my side.  I finally had to get up, take sleeping medicine (Restoril) and put on my original mask.  I am not sure how much sleep  I got.   Today, I am so tired that I can barely function at work (especially after eating lunch).  I know that it takes time to recover after years of Sleep Apnea, but I am hoping that I start to feel much better soon.

Regards,
Aarondawg