09-29-2017, 12:54 PM
First night, whoosh by whoosh: I slept 11 hours
I'll never sleep another second without this machine. Seriously, I almost popped off within 2 whiffs of the fresh air bathing my nostril fuzz.After I dispensed with the fish aroma panic (see other thread), assembled the hose buddy (and crawled under the bed 3x to retrieve the absurd loose black washer that has an affinity for my dark blue under-bed grubby carpet, whoever invented this should be shot), waded through Youtube videos trying to figure out how to open the humidifier (this is not a top-of-the-charts topic, as I soon found out, see other thread)....
Then I had to figure out how not to put the mask on upside down and I just had to know what all those words were in the user panel. I was super-glad to see Mr Maskfit Smiley Face
, but not entirely convinced he was up to the job of evaluating mask fit, since my face felt like it was in front of a fan.All this is a way of saying I didn't get to bed until after midnight, score zero compliance on the first day of my trial period, 'cos owing to the cagaries of time clocks, I'm now on Day 2.
No sleep hygiene needed: I went straight to sleep. Bonk.
I tell ya, this air is the best thing ever.
The soothing feel of oxygen breezing into my nose la la la....
What, ho! My mouth stayed shut, no creative devices needed.
After about 3 hours, time for a bathroom break. This was one of the few procedures I hadn't thought through in advance.
Flung off my mask--geez am I supposed to do that?--and discovered that my machine shuts off all by itself. Smart!
I put the mask back on having no clue about how to get the machine going again and having discovered once before that if you mask up and the machine isn't on, you run the risk of suffocation. Problem solved: the machine started up all on its lonesome by about breath #2. Smart!
However, the mask seemed noisier than it had been, or maybe I was dreaming. Anyway, I couldn't remember.
Lightbulb question (night time being a hotbed of epiphanies): what kind of swooshing air is a leak and what just the mask doing its thing? Didn't think of this. And how the heck did I have the mask on before I went to the bathroom, because surely it wasn't like this. Lightbulb. Check Mr Maskfit Smiley Face .I tell ya, that dude's incompetent. Smiling away, and I have air blasting all over my face.
I tried swapping out different sizes of the nasal pillows (stretch your nostrils, anyone? Minimize them to the age of 5?), messing about with the headgear.
Half an hour later, and the getup is back to the way it was before the bathroom break. My nostrils are purring...
I wake up at 5 am. Must have drunk too much water at the earlier break. Now I need a serious respite from all the palaver of this whole enterprise. I get up, make myself some tea, eat a yogurt, and wash down the resulting heartburn with a handful of Tums.
I reconvene the bits and pieces of CPAP. This time I have no intention of being duped by Mr. Maskfit Smiley Face
.Some hours later, I wake up with a veritable cyclone issuing from my mouth. The dreaded mouth breathing. Mr. Maskfit Smiley Face is grinning away.
Obnoxious.I try a few things to get it right, but can't be bothered to take off my headgear, get out of bed, roust up a jaw-jamming gizmo, jump back into bed, put on the headgear, by now woken up entirely. I resolve just to....shut my mouth. No go. I check that I'm past my compliance hours (7!), smirk at Mr. Maskfit Smiley Face
, and decide to get on with sleeping without the mask.I can continue figuring it out tomorrow, and the next, and the next...
I go to sleep for another 3 hours, the least restful of the night....
Moral? Do what you can the first go-round. There's a lot to learn that no one can teach you. Maybe meet your compliance goal? Above all, don't let Mr Maskfig Smiley Face
throw you off your game in the dark of night.
