Night sweats and anxiety

[dannyboyswe]

Hi guys, new user from Sweden here.

Not sure why I'm writing here... correction, I know why, I'm just not sure anyone can help me. 

I've had my CPAP (ResMed S9) since Dec 2014, and I use a full face mask.
I've been fighting anxiety and what my wife and I think is PTSD for all of my adult life.
More or less every night I rip my CPAP mask off in the middle of the night, mostly because I imgine I've swallowed something I shouldn't have, like too many antidepressants, or even spiders. Oh, I'm a mouth breather btw.
But the last 2-3 weeks I've almost every night woken up, gasping for air and with the most terrible night sweats you can imagine. I'm soaked as if someone threw a tub of water all over me. I can't remember if I've ever experienced anything like this while using CPAP before, at least not for such a long period of time.

I'm afraid that there's something wrong with me, like some f***ed up cancer or something. Oh, forgot to mention I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, even though I haven't had any issues with it for the past 10-12 years, but it's slowly creeping back to me.

I've sent a message to my local hospital ward from with I have obtained my CPAP, to see if there's anything they can do to help me.

It doesn't help that we're in a once in a lifetime pandemic, and I've isiolated myself for more or less a year.

Any words of wisdom? Or perhaps you have been in a similar situations with similar problems?

[Cpapian]

Welcome dannyboyswe,

I was wondering if you take any antidepressants. Your anxiety is something you might want to talk to your family physician about.

The lockdowns can get to us. I found I had to put more rigor into my days. So I have set limits on how long I can do certain activities and set goals for my day, one of which is exercising. Even sleep times are more regulated. It has helped me.

[SarcasticDave94]

Welcome and a few things that may be worth considering. It's possible your older PAP isn't what it used to be for therapy. Maybe it's time to look into a new ResMed 10 if the old one is over 5 years and/or has over 15,000 hours. Some may last a lot longer than this but maybe yours isn't up to what it should be.

Second is we've got a great free report tool called OSCAR that'll show us how well the therapy is doing for you. Maybe settings need edited . As time passes this is very possible. You'll need an SD card in the PAP to capture the data and will need to lock the SD card when you're putting it in your PC.

[Dormeo]

Welcome, dannyboy. I'd like to second Dave's suggestion about getting a new machine. It's probably time. What you want, to give it its full name, is a ResMed Airsense 10 Autoset (ideally the For Her version, which has an extra option for settings).

Here is information about night sweats from a trusted web site:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/symptoms/nigh...m-20050768

You will see that while night sweats can be associated with some serious medical problems, sleep apnea is a possible cause as well. This, plus your description of your nightmares, makes me wonder whether you are not getting adequate treatment of your apnea, either because your machine is wearing out or because you need adjustments to your settings.

So I echo Dave on recommending Oscar. If you post a chart, the experts here can probably see quite readily what's going on.