Foo - sleep study/apnea part deaux

finally got results of sleep study, took them long enough, (too damn long).

i have sleep apnea. so i need a CPAP machine. apnea is where a person stops breathing for up to 10 seconds at a time when they area sleep, the body wakes up so the person can regain breathing. thus resulting in a person not getting the deep r.e.m. sleep he or she needs to fully rest. therefore feeling tired during the day no matter how much time they spend in bed the night before.

proper sleep is very important for everyone. with out it we can not survive for very long. not to mention the risk involved when we do not get enough sleep and are tired the next day. meaning when you drive a vehicle, operate any kind of machinery at your job, or when we ride our bikes.

however the human body does not have the ability to "store sleep". what i mean by this is if you get 12 hours of sleep one night then the next night only get 4, and you usually sleep 7 to 8 hours, your body does not store that extra 4 hours from the night you slept 12 hours with the expectation that you will not be tired after the night you only slept for 4 hours.

sorry folks but thats not how the body works. we are not battery's that can store power and energy for a long period of time. we need proper rest.

when i had my sleep study the first 4 hours was with out a CPAP. then @ about 2:00 am the tech came in & put the CPAP on me. i fell asleep right away and was awakened @ 6:00 am. i told the tech. it was the best 4 hours of sleep i'd had in a long time. so hopefully this will help me get the sleep i need so i don't feel tired all the time.

the CPAP machine is only a tool that will help me sleep and get the full rest i need. along with using the machine i still have to lose weight, lower my cholestorol, etc. by getting the proper sleep i will have the energy to follow through with a exercise program, etc.

if anyone has any kind of sleep problems i urge you to talk to your dr. and get any help you may need.

john.

I am getting ready to do a sleep study at the urging of a friend who works as a respiratory tech for a sleep study clinic up in Bellingham(North of Seattle). I have to wait until later in January to get in. I have asthma and snore could be a bad combo for getting sleep I guess. My friend tells me sleep study is the wave if the future for medicine. They are learning so much stuff about proper sleep and how it relates to the rest of your health. Keeps us posted on your progress!

God help you and your wife!

Those machines are so friggin' loud, I don't know how anyone can sleep. When I was staying with a friend at a hostel out in San Diego, this guy was staying at in our room with his wife, and they got in at like 12AM, and when that guy turned on that machine, I woke up in a snap and could not even THINK to go back to sleep AT ALL. It felt like the floor was vibrating. I wanted to kill the dude in his sleep. Me and my friend called it the "Darth Vader machine" because it sounded like a really asthematic, loud breathing Darth Vader.

Good luck with all that. Hopefully, they have some better machines out now that won't wake up the neighborhood when you turn it on at night. Forget about having children with the machines I'm talking about... there's no way you'll be able to get a house quiet enough to calm down a baby once you've put them down to sleep!

Koffee

The CPAP machine I have isn't any louder than the cooling fan on my computer. It doesn't disturb me, or my wife.

The Cpap machine is very quiet. Much more than my snoring was. It's great. I can't sleep on my stomach, the mask and hose prevent that, but now I can sleep on my back and wake up feeling rested and ready to go. That's the hardest thing my wife had to deal with. I leave her in the dust in the morning. She doesn't stop breathing when she sleeps but I sleep much deeper. The only thing is the machine is very expensive and my insurance changed the week before. The first six months they just rent you the machine, then I understand the insurance will buy the machine if it works for you less deductable which I'll have to pay twice. Not all people can tolerate it. I understand about 1 out of 5 can't deal with it. About once a month I have problems with stuffing up that antihistimines won't help. The mask is meant for nose breathing only. You can get a larger mask but I hear that it's harder to get that mask to seal to your face. It's also much more expensive. The cheapest mask I was shown was $65 and they only last about six months with daily cleaning. That's the mask I'm using now. The one I was using which sealed easier made my face break out where it contacted the skin.
NC, BTW use only distilled water in your humidifier. You won't have to delime your water tank and hose that way. Something else, normaly this is a lifetime thing. I hope the machine works for you.

These must be newer machines. The ones I've dealt with have been so loud you cannot talk in the room- you just cannot be heard.

Now, if it's quiet, that would certainly be nice. Be sure not to go for the older machines, then, because it is horrible. I've never heard anything like it, except perhaps having a freight train running through your house nonstop or something along those lines.

Koffee

i slept like a baby last night. i picked up the CPAP yesterday & used it for the first time last night. it was the best sleep i've had in a long time.

it will take some time to get fully used to the mask & i have to use the ramp feature when i get into bed as i'm falling asleep. right now i can not handle the full force of the air coming through the mask all at once. the ramp feature lowers the amount of air coming through & builds up to the full amount over the course of 30 min.

the setting for me prescribed by the dr. is 13 centimeters. i don't exactly know what that means but it has something to do with the maximum amount of air my machine will push throught the mask. when i use the ramp setting it takes it down to 4 & like i said builds up to 13. last night i fell asleep within about 15 min or so.

when i woke up i did not feel tired or groggy like i had in the past. now that i've regained this rested feeling its time to get serious about weight loss. come monday i'm either going to the siouxland Y or riding on the trainer.

one other benefit this machine has is my wife sleeps better too. because i have the apnea, before i got the machine she would not get a full nights sleep because she would hear me stop breathing and move me so i re-position myself to keep breathing or my very loud snoring would cause not to get enough sleep.


the maching really doesn't make a lot of noise at all. the noisiest thing is the air that vents out of the mask like its supposed to.

thankfuly i don't require a humidifier for mine.

koffee brown i think the reason the one you heard made a lot of noise is it could have had the humidifier on it. my father-in-law uses a CPAP and he requires the humidifier. his makes more noise, though not a lot, then mine does. also koffee its possible the machine you heard had een dropped or damaged in some way. the noise from these machines, even ones with the humidifiers should not be enough to keep anyone awake.

Boyfriend, let me tell ya!

I've heard two different machines by now, and both of them were so loud you could hardly hear yourself think! I'm not adverse to noise at all- I can sleep standing up in a thunderstorm. Sleep is sleep. But those machines... it was like the sound of a train running through the bedroom. I've never heard anything like it.

The only thing I could think is that perhaps they had older machines, and the newer ones are much quieter. Both the dudes that had these machines were much older guys, and th machines didn't look that new either.

Glad to see you're getting some sleep though! I'm also glad you didn't end up with one of the machines I'm taling about.

Koffee

My mil had an oxygen machine for her emphizema. That was fairly loud, but wasn't annoying. I just can't imagine a cpap machine that loud. I don't have to use the humidifier, but I found if I don't, I'll wake up with a sore throat.