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If it hasn’t happened to you yet, there is a decent chance it soon will. The day when your spouse or partner says to you in the morning, “you hold your breath when you sleep”. Should that occur, there is a pretty good chance that you suffer from sleep apnea (SA). You would be in great company with these familiar folks; James Gandolfini, Regis Philbin, John Candy, Jerry Garcia, William Howard Taft, Reggie White, and Antonin Scalia to name a few. The difference is that you’ve not died from Sleep Apnea like they all did, yet.
October 8th marks my fifth year on a CPAP contraption. Use of the machine has not been without its challenges. In order for Medicare to continue paying for the therapy, I must use the machine for at least four hours each night, 70% of the time. In the beginning It took all my will and ironically many sleepless hours, when I would lay awake until hitting the four hour mark, then taking off the mask so I could get some sleep.
The silicone irritated my skin and the mask put pressure on my sinus. I broke one mask after tearing it off my head. As a last resort I switched to a mask with a memory foam seal. I could tolerate that pretty well, and eventually got my average usage to nearly eight hours per night. Still, I had issues with seal leakage, which would interrupt my sleep, and irritation, though improved, was still an issue.
Once again I began missing nights as a result, and finally decided to talk to a sleep doctor about a surgical solution. The problem was that I was still technically in compliance with minimum usage requirements, and the doctor couldn’t do the procedure.
I had been using a full face mask, one that covers my mouth and goes up to the bridge of my nose. The doctor suggested a different type of mask. Still considered full face, it covers my mouth, but only butts up to my nostrils. Well, that irritates my skin as well, but I found that alternating between the two types of masks gets me over the finish line.
As of today I’m at about 300 consecutive nights of six or more hours. I think that I should get a commemorative coin when I hit the one year mark.
My message is that you should stay positive if you start CPAP therapy. It is not easy, many of those who begin, don’t succeed. Some people actually love their CPAP, I am not one of them, still, I know I rest better, and I don’t want to end up like Tony Soprano, may he rest in peace.
I was super-resistent to using the CPAP at night. It took me several tries over several years to get it right.
Here are two things that turned it around:
1) I wore the mask during the day for increasing amounts of time so I’d get acclimated to the ‘feel’ of it. This helped me to mentally accept the device and not resist it at night.
2) I use a Breath Right nasal strip each evening to keep my nostrils open. This removes the feeling of restricted nose breathing (which kept me from falling asleep).
Good luck. Hope this helps.
I am 50 and started CPAP 3yrs ago. I use nasal pillows. I tried everything else and did not like it. All I can say is – keep trying – you will get there. it is difficult. I was lucky. I took to CPAP like a duck to water. 1 week adjustment period only, I had an amazing sleep therapist who helped me through it, she gave me exercises and tips to make it easier to transition to using it. All the best. I can honestly say, my life is SO much better for it.
Roy, thanks much for your comment. You bring up a few points that I failed to mention. One is that there are sleep therapists to coach and encourage new users; the success ratio for people who use therapists is much higher than for those who do not.
The other thought I had is that those people who do not take an instant love of cpap and give up on therapy (often within days of beginning) scare others away from it with their negative description of it.
As I write this reply, I’m now 42 nights away from a perfect year, and am averaging 7 hours and 2 minutes. Thanks again for posting.
The timeliness of this post is freaky. (I agree with the others that said nasal only mask is easy sailing). I have been using mine so long (probably 10 years), my machine is now giving me a message that it has reached the end of is useful life. That’s right folks! Technology obsolescence is everywhere! Now I’m trying to get a replacement sent as purchase NOT as rental so that I don’t get caught running into January insurance resets and paying the full shot for a few months. Between the dr, the cpap supplier, the cpap suppliers biller and the insurance company I have been sent in so many circles I’m dizzy. Machines run about $1000 so I will continue to battle! Best wishes to you in your journey.