Aprehensive & Hopeful

[SearchForPanacea]

Hi all,

Been looking through this forum as well as r/cpap for too long now. 31, and have been suffering from extreme exhaustion for quite some time, which I always attributed to a heavy work load. The problem with that is, while I do work a lot, its not down in the mines... Severe lack of focus and drive in the afternoon hours, as well as an inability to finish a movie, falling asleep as soon as I board a plane, you name it. Thankfully as I spend a lot on the road, that at least I enjoy and stay focused. 

Long story short, having tried the last resort of improving my Vit-D deficiency and not seeing significant results, I went for a sleep study 3 days ago. Ill preface this by saying that I'm an early riser naturally, around 6am +/-, I generally am in bed for 7ish hours, but my watch has been seeing desats and wakening regularly. 

The study was awful, for the first time in years I couldn't fall asleep, and kept fully waking up, for over half an hour each. Finally managed to hit some deep sleep past 4am. In that period, the AHI was 28, although the overall average was 8.2 during the study. 

The doctor prescribed CPAP with pressure 5-15 on the ResMed 10, due to the symptoms and the study, and I picked up the machine today. 

Honestly, weird feeling, not too happy to be needing a machine, but at the same time being so so hopeful that a plethora of issues that are linked to bad sleep might be solved. 

Wanted to take this chance to say hello and thank you all for the advice I've been seeing lately. If anyone has any more tips, would be greatfull!

Cao!

[OpalRose]

It appears you're off to a good start.  Once you get a few nights sleep in, post a couple Screenshots from the daily page in OSCAR for review.  I suspect the minimum pressure of 5 might be too low.  Be sure to purchase an SD card and keep it in your Cpap while sleeping.  

Use the links in my Signature Line to guide you in Organizing an OSCAR chart and then use the Attachment Feature to post it here.

Some tips:

Sleeping on your side if able is preferred, but sleeping on your back is fine too as long as you don't allow your head to be pushed forward into your chest.  This can happen when using more than one bed pillow.  This can result in a lot of Obstructives.  Read about Positional Apnea here:  https://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.ph...onal_Apnea

Don't forget to order a Clinicians Manual for your machine.  https://www.apneaboard.com/adjust-cpap-p...tup-manual

Also, go over to the Main Forum and read some of the Sticky Threads.

[SearchForPanacea]

Thanks for the welcome!

First night went as good as it could I guess, 9 hours of usage an 1.1AHI, not going to jump the gun and draw conclusions; but I'll take it.

Going to let 2-3 night pass and then organise Oscar - question, does day time napping and using the machine screw with the overall results on Oscar? Also, will my Dr still be able to get all the data after I've uploaded it to Oscar?

[OpalRose]

ResMed's day runs Noon to Noon.  So anytime you sleep or nap within that time will be show up as separate Sessions, but the AHI will be combined when you see you total.

If you take a short nap and don't want to see that combined with your nightly sleep, you can turn that session off.  It then won't show on OSCAR.  Sessions will be listed on the left sidebar at the bottom.  Just click on the session bars to turn on and off.

https://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.ph...t_side-bar

[SearchForPanacea]

    [attachment=70298]Hi, thanks again. 

I have the OSCAR Charts from the first few days, believe its all there. The leaks seem high - on the 2nd and 3rd night i loosened the straps as the first night gave me a slight sore on the nostril, but loosened was too loose. Still the leaks didn't go away so I' tightened back slightly, really irritating sore in the mornings but manageable. I asked the tech in the pharmacy and they said the machine only measures mask leak, not mouth leak (?). 

I did buy a strap, but honestly if not needed I'd prefer to go without. What are the signs that you should use a chin strap? 

Major issue now is that I can't wake up as easily as before, as in I seem to be needing way more hours, and the 6 am wake up is a struggle... Used to get by on less sleep (granted with chrnoic fatigue ) , but I do hope 8 hours isn't going to become the norm...

Any feedback, advice, thoughts are greatly appreciated. Its all quite new, interesting, and I really would like to stay on the right track. 

p.s. Do you all change both the machines clock and the settings in Oscar when switching time zones, or is on the machine enough?

p.p.s Thanks to all on the forum for so much insights and posts. 

           

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Last 2 nights.