05.25.10
Sleeping with a CPAP and coping with Sleep Apnea
This is going to be a big departure from what I normally write about, but I meet enough people that never seem to learn to sleep with their CPAP (Constant Positive Airway Pressure) machine that I want to share how I cope with it. None of what follows should be construed as medical advice in any way. It is simply my story and what I have found works for me and I want to share it in case somebody else can benefit. Check with your physician and use your common sense to decide what will work for you.
We will go through some background, the sleep study, and then get on to how the CPAP and mask works, and how you can cope with it.
I DON’T SNORE
Yes, you do. Get over it. Hopefully somebody who sleeps near you or even loves you told you you snore and you conceded that you might snore - at least long enough to do a sleep study. (If somebody is telling you that you snore, and even stop breathing, you should listen to them long enough to take them seriously). Worse yet, if they tell you you stop breathing a phone call to your doctor should be the very next thing you do.
THE SLEEP STUDY
Hopefully you’ve been through the sleep study. For the uninitiated, they hook you up to about every conceivable monitor. They watch your brain waves, the oxygen content of your blood, your respiration and your heart. All these crazy wires dangling off you and your scalp while you try to sleep, which they are watching and video taping. Go to the sleep study tired.
In my case they woke me up after a few short hours and said “here’s your mask”. This is how they tell you you have apnea. Using the mask they can try to determine how much pressure is needed to help you breathe.
Sleeping with that mask over my nose felt ridiculous. I was gagging on too much air and I felt like I could not breathe. A blast of air was going out all over my eyes. I didn’t really understand what was going on, or how this was supposed to help me sleep, we’ll get to that later on. But after a few more hours sleeping with that horrible thing, I awoke, unable to sleep any more, and feeling better than I had in ages. I was awake at 5:30 AM and felt ready to take on the day. I thought about this for the next two days and I could not wait to get a CPAP and mask of my own so I could feel this awake and refreshed again.
Continued in part 2