New CPAP user frequent waking

[Spike9726]

Couldn't find the paperwork on the mask but it's pretty big. That's my preference. It's not so much the noise but it seems that some nights the mask doesn't fit snuggly so I get little air leaks and the machine seems to blow harder. No complaints on the noise. It's kind of a white noise effect but not loud enough to be effective for that.

Last night was first not great night in a while. I have a bit of chaffing on bridge of nose and mask just wanted to move a bit on me. Kept waking up, but finally did have a long and somewhat boring dream.

[Spike9726]

I see the purpose of the ramping feature but is there a way to tinker with the settings? Like going from 4 to 8 faster or maybe starting at 6?

[Spike9726]

I've been on an emotional roller coaster the past few weeks. All but 1 night was decent sleep this week. Is this normal?

[Fats Drywaller]

It's all normal, ups & downs, roller coaster or speeding down a straight track or crawling down a straight track, all of it, until you have got used to the machine & mask and have settled into the routine of it, which takes a few weeks (maybe for some folks a month or two, and those individual variations are normal also), at which point you won't be bothered by it any more and any emotional upsets will be from whatever else is going on in your life.

Edited to add: After that, it'll still take some time for your body to recover fully from the chronic sleep deprivation. Also normal. To be conservative, figure six months of using the machine 100% of the time while sleeping, and check on your general health & well-being then. And at that point, contribute a testimonial to the "Personal success stories" thread.

About the settings, you can get the instructions for changing the settings by using the "CPAP Setup Manuals" link at the top of most pages here at AB. There, scroll down or do find-on-page to the section headed "Philips-Respironics DreamStation Series Machines (DreamStation Auto BiPAP, DreamStation BiPAP Pro, DreamStation Auto CPAP, DreamStation CPAP Pro, & DreamStation CPAP)" and read that. Then read the section about requesting setup manuals by e-mail, find your machine's exact model name in the list (not just "Dreamstation", which is vague), and send a mail message with that string to request the PDF.

[Fats Drywaller]

Forgot to mention that the patient's guide for the Dreamstation, covering the settings that are not supposedly on the clinician's side of the fence, is at (PDF):

http://incenter.medical.philips.com/docl...ction=Open

[OpalRose]

I see the purpose of the ramping feature but is there a way to tinker with the settings? Like going from 4 to 8 faster or maybe starting at 6?

Yes, you can start ramp at any pressure.  The ramp feature will work better for you if it is closer to your minimum pressure of 8cm.  Set ramp to 6cm.  

Eventually, when you get used to the pressure, you may not need to use the ramp feature.

Order your Clinicians manual if you haven’t done so.
https://www.apneaboard.com/adjust-cpap-p...tup-manual

[Spike9726]

Had a rough night Saturday in part because I got bumped and the mask quit fitting. My CPAP retailer agreed to meet me Sunday to readjust the mask.

Sunday had a good day and even went to gym. Went to bed around midnight. Slept great for about an hour and a half and woke up because I had to pee. Then for whatever reason was freaking out about mask, which is rare because I enjoy the mask when it's fitting right, it's kind of a safe zone and i think about my breathing. That said it can be almost invigorating which is not what you want when trying to sleep. Goty online and a friend was reaching out. She's more screwed up than I am, might have been some devine intervention.

So I go back to bed and get another quality 90 mins or so. Then I wake up because I am hungry. This is the downside to going to the gym. I didn't even do much as it was my first time in forever but my appetite doubled. So I make a meal and fall asleep w/o mask for several hours. I do not do this on purpose as to me sleeping w/o the mask is a waste of time. I am what I think of as asleep bit no quality rest (but it keeps me up the next night).

So now I am up 7ish and now dog is awake and wants his breakfast, wants to go out everyfive minutes, wants to crawl into my lap (he's and 85 pound lab). Fortunately no morning appointments so once I go everything quiet I put the mask back on and got a decent hour.

According to the machine I had 5.3 good hours out of almost 10. Finally somewhat rested and ready to face the rest of the day. Still frustrated.