First full night of CPAP sleep

[dsrtao]

Slept from 11 until 2, woke up for a bio break, got back to sleep reasonably easily. Up at 6:30, feeling a litttle dry (should turn up the humidity from medium to high) but otherwise good. Don't remember any dreams. The first cause of my 2 AM wakeup was a sharp pain in my right thigh, associated with the numb area I got there when standing too long on a hard floor at the bookstore. Massaged it out.

Need to figure out how to shift positions and maintain the mask seal. Perhaps the manual has advice? If not, will google.

The real test is how I feel an hour or two from now, when I'd be likely to start thinking about a nap.

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I hope it has helped tremendously.

[dsrtao]

I have: emptied the dishwasher, done the dishes, made mushroom-onion omelettes for breakfast. Emotionally, I feel like spending an hour on the exercise bike, going grocery shopping, and then spending all afternoon in the pool.

Realistically I'm going to skip the exercise bike for now; it does me no good to exhaust myself on day one and need a nap, at which point I won't know how I'm really feeling.

But my prediction is that in a week or so, I'll either be doing tai chi or the exercise bike first thing in the morning.

This morning's quote: "How do you know if you're really happy or it's just psychosomatic?"

[the-nita.livejournal.com]

If you don't get anything useful out of the manual, lemme know - I have friends who've been using CPAP's for a couple years now, and may well have tips/tricks, if you'd like.

[dauphin1974.livejournal.com]

I've found that tucking the hose into the crack between the mattress and the head of the bed-frame (so that it goes UP rather than out) makes it easier to turn over in the night. Since it's pinned pulling slightly up, it doesn't fall down and prevent me from turning over... Mostly I start up on my side, but find that I'm on my back around the middle of the night - I then turn back on to my side in the morning. Each time I find I have to fiddle with the mask to get it set right again, but can usually do it quickly and I fall back asleep right away again.

Seriously - take naps if you like in the first couple of weeks. If you use the CPAP for the nap it will really dramatically change your energy level! I found that napping (what's a couple of hours?) without the CPAP left me dull, stupid, slow and groggy. With CPAP - woke up refreshed.

I have my humidity set to 2 (low), but my air-pressure is lower than yours - also I find high/warm humidity to be oppressive. Your mileage may vary, but fiddle with it to your heart's content.

PS: don't forget the cleaning instructions, expect to sleep without it when you have a cold, and make sure you dry it out every morning. I got a couple of really bad cases of bronchitis in the early going because I would sleep with a cold and found that the "junk" got pushed down into my lungs. As an asthmatic, this is an issue... Again YMMV.

Good luck, congrats on making the transition (took me a couple of days to get any night's sleep the first time I used CPAP - didn't like the mask... Now I love it. Can't imagine how I survived pre CPAP.) PS: for camping there are portable power supplies that will run the CPAP for a night or two (without preheater) - I used one for a campout and it was fine - sold it to another CPAP user for his camping needs (his wife thanked me profusely!).

Ciao.