Hi.  I was diagnosed with sleep apnea about six weeks ago, and have spent the last month trying unsuccessfully to adjust to a CPAP machine.  The problem is, Im not just having trouble sleeping with the mask, I'm not sleeping with it at all.  I wear it for an hour or two until I get too tired not to take it off, after which I'm asleep within five minutes.

This is the weird thing.  The reason I can't sleep is that while I'm wearing the mask, especially as I get closer to falling asleep, I feel like I stop breathing every once in a while.  It's not air hunger, it actually feels like I can't breathe for a second.  This gives me a huge adrenaline rush and wakes me right back up no matter how tired I am.  I've tried two different kinds of masks and two different machines (CPAP and C-Flex), and it's pretty much exactly the same every night.  Has anyone else experienced anything like this?  It doesn't seem to make any sense, but I'm pretty sure it's not all in my head.  After a year and a half of trying to figure out my chronic fatigue, it's driving me crazy to finally have an answer and not be able to get the treatment to work.

...help.

If you are using a nasal mask, is there a possibility that the mask is riding up on your face and the mask is obstructing your nostrils?  This happens to me on occasion with some masks, I wake up unable to breath through my nose and I have trained myself to not breath though my mouth.

Another problem could be the Ramp feature being set too low.

It might be worth your while to request a copy of not just the doctor's dictated results report (1-2 pages) but also the full scored data summary w/condensed graphs report (5+ pages) from both your sleep evaluation and your titrations studies. The answer or suggestion of an answer just might lie in those reports: sleep positions, leg movement, any central apneas, other sleep disorders, etc.

Which two CPAPs have you tried? At least one of them was a Respironics given your mention of C-Flex. What two masks have you tried?


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CrohnieToo wrote:

Another problem could be the Ramp feature being set too low.

It might be worth your while to request a copy of not just the doctor's dictated results report (1-2 pages) but also the full scored data summary w/condensed graphs report (5+ pages) from both your sleep evaluation and your titrations studies. The answer or suggestion of an answer just might lie in those reports: sleep positions, leg movement, any central apneas, other sleep disorders, etc.

Which two CPAPs have you tried? At least one of them was a Respironics given your mention of C-Flex. What two masks have you tried?

I've been thinking I might need a higher setting.  My prescription is for 8, and right now my ramp starts at 5.  All my stuff is Respironics, my first machine was a REMstar and now I"m using a REMstar auto.  I have a standard "comfort classic" mask, and an "optilife" with nasal pillows; they're equally uncomfortable in different ways so I keep switching back and forth.  I don't have a copy of my data but I"ve seen the report, all my apneas are during REM, other than that I don't think there's anything else going on with my sleep.  I'm starting to worry this is in my head, because it's exactly the same no matter what mask or machine I use, and I slept okay during my initial sleep study, but it certainly feels real.  Sigh.

try starting on full pressure, dont use the ramp, also take deep slow breaths, avoid rapid shallow panting

you can forget to breathe if thinking hard about something


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