[Health] Pressure

[JamesW]

Having been a forum member for just over four years now I would like to raise the topic of pressure. Not CPAP treatment pressure, but the pressure that we can place on ourselves to have the lowest AHI or the lowest leak rate. The never ending trip to be as good as what others are achieving. I will put my hand up and openly say that I have had severe mental health issues in the past years, and attribute some of it to chasing my tail on physical health problems, including my CPAP treatment.  I have learnt, over time, to look at the long term trends. 3, 6 or even 12 month data trends. For the record my 6 month AHI trend is 0.39 and my 12 months AHI trend is 0.45, and I started at 47!  We are all in this for the long game. Gentle adjustments or trying a new mask is part of the game, But if it does not yield immediate improvements that equate to what others are getting just go easy on yourself.

Placing pressure on yourself to get the same results as others is a no win situation. You may wind up getting worse sleep and the data can become skewed. Be kind to yourself and accept that too much information can just confuse. By all means seek answers to any questions, but accept the situation you find yourself in. CPAP is sometimes inconvenient, if you have a sleep partner.   It is not a good look in the mirror either. However it helps to keeps us from departing the dance of life early. Be kind to yourself and breathe easy. Look after your mental health and please if you struggle seek out someone to talk to.

JamesW

[sheepless]

thanks for that reminder. good advice.

[Dormeo]

James, your observations are important, I think. Many of us do need to study data to optimize treatment, but there can easily come a point when we are fruitlessly obsessing. I'm almost there myself, I'm realizing, and before long I'm going to have to stop looking at Oscar every morning. But honestly, if I hadn't been doing that for the past year, I wouldn't be in a very good place now. So the trick is to recognize when you're doing fine with your disordered breathing and then just live your life without focusing so much on it.

Thanks for the post.

[mesenteria]

It's a very valuable and meaningful point, James, and well-taken on my end.  

I think of it as being 'cured' with antibiotics.  We get 'help' overcoming the problem, and we return to normal.  But normal isn't disease-free!  Normal is statis, or dynamic equilibrium, where everything is running a tad minus, then a tad plus.  We're always fighting something.  CPAP is what helps us to deal with a potentially lethal problem.  It doesn't cure us.  It helps us to regain our equilibrium, or to regain our 'normal'.  Thinking that 'normal' means 00 on our AHI count each morning is no more realistic than is our 'ideal weight', the complete absence of any pathogens in our system, or sleeping a 'perfect' night.