Can someone tell me what steps to expect. Can you get up to go to the bathroom with ease. Do you find it a humiliating experience. Are the technicians usually friendly
thanks

hopefully all will go well, yes if you want to urinate it may be easier to sit up on the bed and ask for a bottle, there is a button you press to get help

the good people are kind and helpful as this makes things much easier

everything concerning sleep apnea and using a CPAP is potentially humiliating so you must put aside any excessive pride and be accepting and be  having positive thoughts

everyone there is after all, trying to help you

wash hair and scalp but dont put anything on your hair or any cream on face, I take a cap  for head  as sometimes there is a draft from the air conditioning


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respironics comfort gell mask,resmed S6 lightweight CPAP, pressure 10 no humidifier
NO DOCTOR EVER ASKED ME IF I SNORED

My techs were very friendly. I was greeted as soon as I walked in the door and taken to a room that was nicer than some hotel rooms. The first night they had me fill out some additional forms when I first got there and then it took about a half hour to get wired up. The tech just had friendly chat with me and answered any questions I still had while wiring me up. You'll most likely have wires going to your legs, chest, face, neck and scalp and a belt around your chest and waist, and an oxygen monitor on one finger. They monitor leg movement, eye movement, breathing, snoring, heart rate, oxygen levels, etc. There was also a small video camera on the wall but they don't spend the whole night just watching you. I went to the bathroom before getting wired and didn't have to go during the night, but I was told if I needed to go to just "speak up" and the tech would come in and help me. After getting wired up they ask you from the monitoring room to do things like blink, imitate snoring, look up, down and sideways, etc, to check that the wiring is working properly. I also watched an educational video about sleep apnea. They had TV available and if I were to do it over again I would ask them to let me keep the TV on longer as I always fall asleep with TV on sleep timer and it was kind of eery for me to just lay there in silence waiting to fall asleep. The lab sent me a packet prior to my first study with some forms and explanation of what to expect, and then they called me a couple days before coming in to see if I had any qestions.  I asked them about water at bedside and that was no problem, but I did bring my own water bottle. I have shortness of breath a lot which was one of the symptoms, in addition to fatigue, that prompted my dr to order a sleep study. One time while waiting to fall asleep I sat straight up to try to get my breath, and the next thing I know the tech is on the intercom asking if I'm okay. That was a little strange for me, but then I didn't hear anything over the intercom again until they woke me up in the morning.

The second night the tech brought in one each of 3 types of masks. She talked about each type of mask and let me try each one on. Then she let me choose which one I wanted to try sleeping with and I chose the nasal pillows. I'm sure if I had wanted to switch during the night I could have asked and done so, but the nasal pillows worked fine for me and I'm still using them.

All in all it was a positive experience for me, especially considering that you're having to try to sleep while all wired up and in a strange environment. Reading the sleep study posts on this forum helped me a lot in being prepared for what to expect.